Here it is, the last day of Imagine No Religion 4; the conference is over for another year. And the worst thing to happen to me today was losing the lens cap to my camera. Oh, well–shit happens.  I’m sure I can live without it.

Another fun-filled, enlightening day, another day of taking careful notes from all of the speakers–one of whom I completely forgot to photograph, before or during his talk, but there’s no point in crying over spilled almond milk. One of the presenters, near the end of her presentation, showed a photograph of Earth, shot from behind Saturn–she had to zoom in to show us this little blue dot that is our planet; I honestly thought I was going to cry at the sight of it, and the thought that we live on a planet no bigger than the point of a ballpoint pen relative to the universe as a whole–and to Saturn, whose image took up most of the left part of the photograph. And I got my books signed by their respective authors, one of whom seemed to really appreciate meeting me as well as my buying his book.

I did miss some opportunities this year–chiefly the chance to interact with one of the speakers–but this year was an improvement over last year in terms of me rustling up the nerve to talk to people I want to talk to. Overall, though, I’m glad I came to this year’s conference, and have every intention of going to next year’s conference if there is one. Hopefully by then, I’ll have a thing or two to say to people I want to talk to, and I won’t let as many opportunities pass me by out of sheer nervousness.