During mid April, I was asked by Tantrwm to accompany them to Brighton for six days. Why? It was to help them cover the 45th annual IATEFL conference. Or the International Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language.
As you can guess by the long title, it is an association of teachers from around the world to aid their students to learn the English language as their second language. The conference consisted of many a talk, five plenaries and some interviews. Tantrwm was asked to stream the plenaries and the interviews live onto the internet while recording the variety of talks to place on their website at a later date.
I was picked up by Chainey at nine-ish in the morning. Three and a half hours later, we arrived at the Brighton Centre. The first thing I did? Helped unpack the van and then begin to build the studio with the rest of the team. Well, the majority of the team, as three of them (one of who was Craig, Editor man of Wicid) was still on the road, and ended up in Brighton in the nighttime.
At the end of day one, this is what the studio looked like...
The next day was really another build day, with just adding the final touches to the studio - adding screens, placing the furniture and laying out the cameras. It was only on the third day where I actually did proper work. Well, all I did really was carry cables and stands around and at the same time write on and take the tapes down to the studio to keep copies of the talks. Did that for three days or so. Wasn't that hard. Just made me wish I was both stronger and taller. Ha.
The nights were alright too. I gained the nickname "Waterboy" due to my water drinking. It's better than being called impotent or piss head. But yeah, all the Tantrwm and the British Council guys were pretty funky. I just hope I did good for them and not look like an idiot like at the first plenary (basically, I walked into a camera stand and a boom microphone). Ha.
But yeah, it was a good experience. First time I stayed somewhere outside Wales for a few days. It was also the first time I had a Japanese and a Mexican. Food now, not women.
So yeah, nothing gobsmack worthy to state. Apologies for the lateness on this post. Ah well. I may actually write a Dear World this week to compensate for the Insults one not being up for about three weeks... Ah well...
- FIN me up inside.
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