Presentation

On Saturday, I went up to Daejeon to meet Mike. We had sent an application, and been accepted, to present some of our research at the regional KOTESOL Conference. It was a small, local one, but still a first step.

We met at Daejeon station and cabbed to Woosung University. I was actually really disappointed with the campus. After seeing so many great or historic ones in Korea, Woosung was just red brick in the middle of a run down neighbourhood. Oh well.

We went over our slides and had a few last minute changes. Darren came to watch us, and to be honest we thought he might be the only one to show. In fact we had almost twenty people there, though no one from KOTESOL was actually in the room at any point, a fact that caused some stress with a few technical problems. However, we solved it and delivered what I thought was a great presentation.

We had lots of questions and discussions and I actually had to announce that we were over time for people who wanted to get to the next presentation (again, no one from KOTESOL was there to do that). I really felt we hit it out of the park, and people there seemed to be entertained and genuinely interested. I certainly felt a buzz afterwards.

The highlight for me though was that Darren, who was running a bit late, walked in and went all the way to the presenters room without paying or registering. He wasn't trying to sneak it but just came up to where I told him we were and no one stopped him or posted signage to tell people where to go to register. While I love the conferences and appreciate the opportunity to present, it amazes me how disorganized KOTESOL seems to be.

Afterwards we made our way to Weisenhaus for dinner and some decent Pale Ales before I got the 1130 KTX home.

It was a solid achievement and I hope to do it again in the future.