Bob and I took a mini-trip to Manhattan this week, because I was speaking on a panel for Cornell Tech and All Tech is Human on Wednesday, and then lecturing the class Trust & Safety: Platforms, Policies, Products, also at Cornell Tech.

This was a fantastic, awe-inspiring trip! On Tuesday we saw Moulin Rouge! and it was incredible. I cried. We had seats at the cocktail tables at the front of the theatre. I brought slippers because I wore heels for my dress, but didn’t want to wear them all night. The security guard asked, “are these your comfy shoes ma’am?” And I confirmed they were indeed my comfy shoes. We had sushi for dinner, and gelato after. Delightful all around!

On Wednesday, we took a trip to visit the office, and ran into my friend and colleague Carly, and saw some folks from work and the Reboot program, which was cool. I ran through my presentation with Bob, as well as the questions for the career panel that night. The practice really helped me tighten things up.

That afternoon, we headed to Roosevelt Island to prepare for the panel being held in the Tata Innovation Center. The room was gorgeous, with views across the river to Manhattan, which came to life as the sky darkened. The room was packed! I chatted with folks ahead of time, and we ended up getting kicked out after the event, because people lingered so long to talk. It was so energizing to meet so many people interested in careers in Trust and Safety, and so many people thinking about switching from their current career to T&S, because the impact matters so much to them. I spoke to one woman who was a human rights lawyer, who was hoping to do a mid-career pivot into T&S. When I tell you that really smart people care about this subject, I am not kidding you.

On Thursday, we checked out of our hotel and headed back to Roosevelt Island. We arrived a little bit early, which was good because I went to the wrong building, thinking we were in the Tata Innovation Center again. Instead, we were in the Bloomberg Auditorium, in the Bloomberg Center.

I got my computer set up (we had to turn it off and turn it on again), and got mic’d up, and was ready to go! I pushed the students to consider the ethical implications of user surveillance — when should we and when shouldn’t we share information with law enforcement, and when should or shouldn’t we read user drafts and messages ourselves. How do we draw those lines consistently and fairly? We talked about the necessary tension between governments (including law enforcement) and platforms who protect user privacy, and why it’s a necessity as a checks/balance system. It was so much fun!

After the class, we walked around Roosevelt Island a little bit. It has an abandoned small pox hospital! It also has a cat sanctuary, which included the world’s oldest goose, and other injured geese. And pigeons, but I think they were there spontaneously. We visited the Four Freedoms park, which was a cool coincidence, because I had spent time in the lecture talking about the four digital freedoms enshrined in WordPress the open source project. As we left, we took the arial tramway back into the city, which was very cool and only a tiny bit scary.

We went to Central Park to try to find this area we had spent time in many years ago, which we couldn’t find on a map or in person. We had finally concluded that we had a joint hallucination, when we found it! Hallett Nature Sanctuary! It’s closed. Ah well.

After the park, we wandered down 8th Ave to 50th street and had some very good Mexican food and margaritas at Dear Rufino. I had a breakfast burrito, Bob had soup. We shared nachos. It was all delicious. After that, we headed back to our hotel, where we had stored our bags, and ended up having a drink together in the hotel bar, before calling an Uber for the airport. When we got to the airport, we found out that our short flight to Buffalo was delayed 70 minutes. So we went to the Delta Sky Club and relaxed while we waited. The good news was we were upgraded to first class on the way home, which was a nice little perk. We didn’t get home until about 2am, but it was 2am on Bob’s 45th birthday! So not all was lost. I got up very tired this morning to get back to work and get caught up from the past few days, and feel very lucky to be able to have opportunities like this! What a week! Next week I’m off to Montreal – it never ends!