The Oasis conference rolled in today. We’ve been preparing since Monday morning, of course, but the first meeting was today.

Sooo many things to do, so much to consider… and the sweetness of seeing it all work out in the end. It’s cool. I had to coordinate with the worship leader to get songs and flows in the meeting right, and we tried a completely new solution, which amazingly enough worked. We’re running a PowerPoint application wrapper that’s been developed completely new for this conference, and it’s never funny to stress-test an application like that in front of 2000 people, when every other detail is also uncertain.

When soldiers jump into battle, the anxiety and stress levels vary greatly between different types of soldiers. New soldiers typically have increasing stress levels throughout the whole battle, and they don’t know if they’re doing anything right, if it works, they’re not accustomed to the sounds of the battlefield yet and they make mistakes. So did I. The good part is, it worked out.

The second level you come to as a soldier is when it all suddenly starts making sense. You have a feeling of “it works”. You keep firing in the right direction, you slip up here and there but somehow it all works out. I came to that stage about halfway through the meeting.

Experienced veterans have very different levels of stress. Typically, they show high stress levels before and after a battle, but once they step into it, they calm down, focus, and do their thing. This was the stage I was entering towards the end of the first meeting. And when it all was over, I looked over at the worship leader, and we sort of looked gratefully at each other with the attitude of “it worked!” She actually said more things than that, but that was the summary of it.

Now it’s late at night, and the next meeting start tomorrow at 10:00. I’ll probably try to be there at 08:30 to head up my team again. I’m not sure they’re ready to take over my part just yet, so I have to carry the thing a bit further, I think.

Anyway, hooah.