...I was really looking forward to the Thanksgiving-Christmas-New Years holidays in 2012. Steve would be flying in to spend all of them with me. My regular readers might be wondering how he's able to visit so often and the reason being is he is in the entertainment business and has a flexible schedule. You already knew he was a comic but his main focus is a weekly podcast where he interviews guests for an hour about their careers. They include every form of entertainer from actors, musicians, writers, comics and news personalities. He likes to tease me about it but when he has an interview with a guest that I'm a fan of it's guaranteed I will be coming to the studio to sit in on the recording and meet them. I am proud of the work that he does and he gets all the guests on his own without a producer, many of which the contact information was provided as a referral by other guests who enjoyed being on his show. If you're interested in listening go to CooperTalk.net. So when the holidays came up and he booked his flights he was able to record shows ahead of time and play them during his absence. Not only that but my bosses were so happy with the previous years Christmas party and comic they asked that I book the same venue and this time hire Steve to perform. Most of my co-worker friends had met him already so it was a good situation and he would be able to change his ticket and fly in earlier too. I was so happy as this was the first time in decades (yes) that I was in a relationship and even better had someone to share the holidays. Life was good!
In December I received an email from the professor at U of Penn inviting me back to her Victimology class and had a special request too. She joins a group of Psychiatrists who have influence about what happens at Penn for a weekly lecture and they asked her to speak to them about sexual assault for a specific lecture date in January. She explained to me that the group has preconceived notions about the crime and wanted to put a panel together who have dealt with my case and one of those people was me. Wow this was big. I was really flattered and excited to share my story and hopefully change some misguided views of very important people and accepted her invitation immediately.
A week before the lecture Dr. Brown informed me that the others to join the panel will be a former prosecutor from the unit that prosecuted my case and one of the SVU detectives who investigated my case. I was looking forward to seeing them again, expressing my gratitude and sharing how much progress I've made and as a victim/survivor what good came out of all the work they did. Now it was time to look at my speech again in which I had several versions depending on the audience and edit it for the benefit of this particular group. I decided I would take the morning off from work the day of the lecture so as to keep my stress level down. As far as I was concerned this was way more important. It paid off because the speech went very well and the group had a lot of questions. In several emails to follow from the professor she told me the group was "blown away" and the feedback she received included "best seminar ever". Those words were music to my ears and honestly gave me a confidence boost. If this group of highly esteemed professionals could share those kind of reviews then maybe I could really venture out on my own and do it full time after all...
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