Podfic Fangirl Meet Up

[paraka]

I actually started writing this email while in the airport on my way to Vividcon and even then it was super late! I think it's time I finally post it :P

So back in June cantarina emailed me that a couple podfic fangirls were having a get together, and would I be interested in joining them. That was kind of in the middle of my work stress so I welcomed the excuse to get away and said "hell yes!"

The only problem was that the get together was being held on a Wednesday 5 hours from where I live.

Getting the Time Off
Since I had already quite my job at that point, I technically had negative vacation left since I'd lose about a weeks worth for the 1/3 of the year I wasn't going to be working. I made all these plans to go on bended knee to my boss and ask for the time off, but I wasn't hopeful since she's given me trouble when I've asked for days off that I did technically have. :-/

This year my department switched to using an online system for booking vacation rather than going to your boss though, which a coworker reminded me of before I went to beg. The computer system hadn't changed the amount of vacation I had available, so it would allow me to book the days off.

The way the computer system works is there are a number of hours allocated per day to be booked off. That way there aren't too many people off. Most days my department has 16 hours available to be booked.

I really didn't want to involve my boss so I unbooked some vacation from Sept-Dec so I'd have those days available and tried to book the Wednesday and Thursday off. But there was a problem and my request was rejected. Someone else in the department was on vacation that day (so 8 hours gone) and another person had a Dr.'s appointment (2 hours gone). That meant there was only 6 hours left to be booked on the Wednesday.

I figured that the party would likely be in the evening so I could work for 2 hours and drive down after that. So I booked the time available (after a couple tries, I kept getting midnight and noon mixed up).

Only to find out that the podfic party was actually going to be in the afternoon! Gah!
I also found out that every time I had booked something, unbooked it, or attempted to book it (but got rejected), my boss got an email about it. So as I was freaking out about making it on time, my boss came over to ask what the heck I was tying to do. When I explained she told me to just take the whole day (she'd approve it) and have fun.

So that was a whole lot of stress and complication for nothing :P

Podfic Fangirls!
I had so much fun at the meetup! cantarina, fishpatrol, lunchy_munchy and scintilla10 were there. We mostly just hung out talking and recorded podfic. lunchy_munchy brought yummy Australian snacks for us.

We recorded 3 podfics while together, although In An Interstellar Burst is the only one we've posted so far (as far as I know). cantarina also recorded a cracky one on her own with the rest of us providing the giggle track. And oh yeah! We all sang "This Is Our Song" for cantarina's pod_together project, Unexpected Happily Ever After.

We did some really cool stuff with some of the other ones so I can't wait to hear how they turn out.

I know I had more to say on this get together, but waiting 2 months to post about it has made most of those thoughts disappear. :-/