I was a part of a group for the first time in my adult life. I gained a certain amount of international notoriety (admittedly for a short period of time among a small group of people!) and acclaim that I never would have otherwise had (my "15 minutes of fame" as promised by Andy Warhol). I made dear, dear friends with whom I'm still close even going on 20 years later. And it put some color and sparkle into my otherwise plain vanilla accountant life. :-)