Reception Week

I definitely continued the trend of getting out and about this week, mostly in a series of work-related receptions and happy hours. On Tuesday night I got together with co-workers in an informal happy hour with some of the members of our Board of Directors. I ended up chatting with a board member who had been the ambassador to Finland. She was really interesting and intelligent, and I felt like I learned a lot about Scandanavia - did you know kids in Sweden don't have to attend school until they're seven years old?

On Wednesday, I went to the official reception for the board of directors - that was also really fun, with lots of the usual suspects in the DC Space Policy world. The event was at the Canadian Embassy, which has a great view of the Capitol building, and was a really nice location.

Thursday was pretty enjoyable all day. I was back at the Canadian Embassy at 10am to attend an event about Space Security which turned out to have some really interesting speakers. From there, I went straight to the Japan Aerospace Exploration Administration (JAXA) DC offices to see a presentation on what JAXA is planning for 2010. The presentation was pretty interesting, and it was followed by lots and lots of sushi, which was amazing. I realized that I need to start attending many more JAXA activities.

Thursday evening, my company was hosting a space-related young professionals happy hour. The space policy community is not all that big, so most of the people there were familiar faces, though I did meet a few new people as well. The bar had a pool table, I'm not very good, but I figure the longer it takes me to get the balls in, the more pool-playing-time I'm getting for my money, right? After the happy hour, a few of us went out dancing, which is another thing I haven't done in a while. Overall, Thursday was a fun-packed day.

Of course, with all the excitement this week, it's been difficult to focus on all the reading and work I need to do for class... so I guess that will be the focus of my weekend, instead.