Second day of volunteering!  Mostly marked by stuffing bags and age-ism.

The first thing we did was help make the posters for the Pitch a Palooza event with all the editors and agents. Then we stuffed the Teen Day bags - it's amazing, really, they set aside three *special* bags because there are three boys attending the event, and it sounds like that's quite unusual, but hey, I'm all for that. It is quite sad how there appears to be such a divide in YA.  Anyways, after that, we stuffed the awards bags for the RT book award event later that day. It's funny how many things can go wrong - someone packing the books upside down, how to fit the books in, counting how many bags you've made, getting a shipment of books in late, needing to add a certain book into every bag, having authorial requests on how bags are made, etc.

But what's even more amazing/astounding is that people can treat you differently even when you're there to help. The first problem we had was because no one really knew who we were - there were a few people who remembered us from last year when we volunteered but not everyone did and the ones who didn't always looked at us like who the eff are you and why are you here? - and then that was solved when we got them to make us volunteer badges.... Then, of course, when we had badges, the fact that we're half the age of most of the convention goers came into play. I don't understand. If I'm volunteering to help out and set up this book festival of sorts, why does my age matter?  I expressed surprise after someone flipped one of the boxes we were unloading and all the books came out on nice, straight piles. The woman looked at me and said, "Yeah, that's the idea" in a really droll voice. Jesus, I'm not stupid. I was expressing surprise because they didn't fall to the floor, not that I didn't understand what you were doing. Situations like this happened a lot (though this one I remember in particular). And some of them want to boss all of us around like we're 12 years old and don't know how to do anything for ourselves--yes, I am a volunteer, but I got the same instructions you did; doesn't mean I understood them any less than you did.  I mean it's really not everyone there and I know my frustration makes it seem that way, but believe me it's not.  That still doesn't mean I understand the perspective of the people who were judging us like that. If you're there to do work, that shouldn't change anything. Judge us by our work, not our age.

Anyways after that, we got to help set up the Avon authorial sign & giveaway event, which was pretty nice. My friends took pictures, so I should have some to post later.  There were lots of Christmas lights and blue sparkly pillars and fancy cocktail stuff like champagne.  (If it didn't look unprofessional, we might've gotten a glass or two... but we resisted.)  We then got sent to the RT award event to make sure people didn't leave with more than two book bags. (PS - did you know Veronica Roth won the award for Tris being an awesome protagonist?  And Beth Revis for Paranormal romance?  [since when was ATU considered paranormal, btwz?])....

We came back to the Avon author event and assisted authors personally... I was sitting with Katharine Ashe who btw is a complete sweetheart, and I'm going to buy some of her books later, and who didn't stop signing ONCE.  Her line was huge. Almost all her books were gone by the end (though that could be also because some people were greedy; they were only supposed to take one book per author but people are sneaky when they're greedy...).

And done!  That was our day :). Here are the books I brought back with me:

Until next time... aka the most crowded part of the convention... aka giant book fair open to the public and teen day... :)


**I definitely did still have fun... but it's just sad to me that I can't seem to go anywhere without being judged for my age, even when I've proven my work is good.