I’ve been in Dublin for a while first on a school conference at Dublin City University and then now on a bus tour with my classmate Sylvia. Here is the first part of our trip for the conference portion. The conference we attended was one of the biggest communications conferences for academics so it was really a great international conference for me because I got to see not only what North America was doing, but what China, India and all of Europe was doing. It’s a humbling experience to realize how little you know of the world and of a field that really encompasses everything. There were about 1400 attendants and our opening speaker was the President of Ireland Michael Higgins. Not bad! Not only that, but a very large  turnout from SFU was there so I got to see quite a few grad students and profs in Dublin which really throws you in a loop. A good loop of course.

We couldn’t help being a little touristy.

We spent a lot of time chatting with other academics from all different parts of the world during and after the conference. It was so nice finding out about and getting to know specific works of people in your field and other fields. It really broadened the capacity of my own ideas and I felt reinvigorated. I was also struck many times during the conference at how many lightbulbs all this brainpower could light up. I’ve never been in a place with so many smart, passionate, driven and well published people. I felt really fortunate to attend this conference and I’d totally go again… I think it’s being held in India next year