Just another Tuesday grinding through emails when my boss slides into my DMs like “hey, heads up – APA 2024 details just dropped”. Panic mode? Nah, but definitely time to hustle. Grabbed a lukewarm coffee and fired up the laptop.
First Stop: The Website
Hopped straight over to APA’s main site – you know the one. Took a hot minute to find anything. Menu was buried like treasure nobody wants. Poked around “Annual Meeting,” then finally spotted “2024 Schedule” tucked away like an afterthought. Clicked. Waited. Fingers drumming.
The Speaker Hustle
Page loads… and bam! A giant list of names just staring at me. Scrolled down – holy smokes, big shots everywhere. Felt like scrolling through a mental health celebrity guest list. Spotted familiar heavyweights talking about trauma stuff and some brain science gigs. My brain went “ooh, that one? Need to see that.”
- Dr. Big Deal Smith – Trauma Recovery
- Professor Heavyweight Jones – Neuroscience Stuff
- Research Guru Lee – New Depression Treatments
Topic Treasure Hunt
Next up – what are people actually talking about? Scanned the schedule layout. They broke it down nice: Hot Topics, General Sessions, Workshops. Clicked into Hot Topics. Saw loads on digital therapy apps (again?), climate change stress (yep, feels relevant), and equity things. Felt like checking boxes on “What’s Keeping Therapists Up At Night?”
The Schedule Maze
Okay, time for the nitty gritty. Clicked the actual schedule grid. Big mistake on mobile – site kinda choked. Waited… it loaded. Saw SO many talks overlapping. Felt like choosing between ice cream flavors when you only got one scoop. Morning slots packed tight; afternoons stretched weirdly thin in some places. Grumbled quietly about time zone math.
Final Tally & Planning Pain
Jotted down must-see talks with shaky coffee-hand writing. Saw three sessions I want back-to-back in a single hour. Impossible. Brain started calculating: skip breakfast? Run between buildings? Do human cloning? Seriously thought about proposing teleporters to APA.
Bookmarked the schedule page. Sent my boss a messy list of sessions I need her approval for (“funding pls?” vibes). Closed the laptop. Took a deep breath. Felt mentally pre-exhausted. Now… to convince finance this trip won’t break the bank. Wish me luck.
Oh, and if you find the cloning booth before August? Hit me up. This schedule needs superheroes.