Bummed I couldn't get to see him, but figured that something would happen and I'd get to see him. Luck prevailed, and a few days before his San Diego Stage visit, I got a call from a dear friend who had an extra ticket. I said "yes" before the full sentence was even out of his mouth!
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| Woot! Floor tix. Row 2, section AAA, which I figured would be pretty far back in the arena. (That's how the numbering works at concerts I've been to. |
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| Wrong! Turns out section AAA is the first section, and row 2 is actually, literally the 2 row from the stage. Here's my view before they opened the doors to the general public. |
Hearing His Holiness speak live was humbling. And a little stressful, oddly enough. There's so much evil in the world, yet he takes it in stride. Made me wonder what more I can do in service to making things better. Yes, I volunteer for causes and donate my time, but it made me think if there's a call to serve I'm missing on a different scale.
The most unexpected part was how much he giggles and laughs. I guess I expected this serious talk -- and don't get me wrong, there was a lot of meat to his words -- but his gentle, humorous demeanor was such an unexpected delighter!
Bonus picture
As social media manager for TEDxSanDiego, one of the things I like to do is highlight what's going on around San Diego. I thought it was awesome that the Dalai Lama wore visors of the university he was speaking at. So I took at pic of it from the livestream and tweeted from the TEDxSanDiego Twitter account:
"So cute! The Dalai Lama is wearing a UCSD ball cap at his talk. (We say "cute" with the utmost reverence.)"
Imagine my glee when it was printed in the San Diego Union-Tribune's Dalai Lama wrap up the next day! And yes, it's not lost on this former journalist that I'm overly excited that new media is being highlighted in a traditional media outlet.
