My Experiences at Comic-Con: Temporary Places and Spaces of Occupation

While writing a blog doesn't look too different from week to week, the amount of time dedicated to it can vary significantly. This past week, I spent a lot more time studying for midterms than I did writing, but I did manage to make one post about my recent experiences at Comic-Con. I'm a big planner, so a lot of planning went into that trip, even if I didn't end up following it perfectly.

We drove in early Saturday morning and arrived there around 8:30, waited in line for our entrance passes, and then waited for the convention floor to open. My brother flew into town, and we both attended the convention in full costume, his was a Sand Person from Star Wars and mine was Endor Princess Leia. Here is a picture of us at the convention. The trip was full of ups and downs, and I talked about this a lot in my recent blog post. I also mentioned advice for others going to Comic-Con, things I would have done differently, and things I enjoyed about this particular convention. 

Because my blog is cataloguing my experiences as an autistic person, a lot of my advice focused on these aspects of the experience. This was fun because I had actually googled "Advice for going to Comic-Con as an autistic person" when planning my own trip, but I didn't find anything, so hopefully someone else will be able to benefit from my own experiences. 

My experiences at Comic-Con were a lot of fun, and they actually reminded me of our reading this week in Hasselkus, where he talked about how we conceptualize place as a "container of experiences." With the exciting mental image of the Comic-Con "place," it is easy to look at pictures from my time there and bring back the feelings of excitement at other people's costumes, the thematic props and creative merch. Hasselkus wasn't a big fan of tourist destinations, seeing them as fake and devoid of life, but I really enjoyed the unique experience of Comic-Con, enough to write about it in my blog, so I would definitely consider it more of a place than a space, even if Hasselkus would differ. However, Comic-Con only lasts a couple days a year, and by now it has undoubtedly converted back into a "space" rather than a "place," but the mental images I have of that experience carry meaning and experience enough, even if that specific place won't exist again for another year.

For blogging as a whole, it's an interesting occupation in that place and space don't have as much bearing on the plane of the internet. Where I do my blogging, however, can change my experience some. This week's blog post, for example, I wrote while sitting in a local coffee shop. I had spent too much time inside my house studying, so enjoying some quiet music and apple cider was a nice change of pace. This change of "place" likely helped me focus better than I would have if I had continued studying in my living room in front of my tv. Even though my house may have more meaning and "placeness" to it than a random coffee shop, switching to somewhere with less saturated meaning actually improved my overall experience of writing my blog this week. I'll likely keep this in mind if I ever lack motivation in the future for writing my blog.