I haven’t done a conference presentation for quite a number of years. I don’t really count in house seminars at work although I do a couple of them each year. Sure, they mean getting up and talking in front of people, but usually the people are colleagues from various disciplines so they don’t ask tricky questions. Today was different as I co-presented a paper here in Adelaide at the RAILS8 conference on GLAM, cultural policy and Australian cultural heritage. I was very relieved to have an excellent partner in crime as it were in Katherine Howard. I was also very relieved to be presenting in a friendly sized room ar UniSA. I had spent the evening prior with visions of giant, cold lecture theaters dancing through my head. Fortunately this did not come to pass. I thought about all the times I had blithely encouraged students in public speaking, or piano students in performances. How could have possibly been so uncaring? Anyway, apparently it’s good for us to do something that scares us every day. Achievement unlocked for me today.