Capital Letters 2015

NZATE Conference in Wellington

 

I'm practically falling asleep as I type, but I fear no post will come if I leave it until tomorrow so here goes!  Please excuse any typos, grammatical errors and jokes that aren't funny. I've been up since 4am.

Ah, the English Conference.  Held once a year in the middle of winter.  Last year, Rotorua was the destination; this year, Wellington.  I've been to three NZATE Conferences before - as a first year teacher on an NZATE scholarship (when teaching at Tolaga Bay Area School)in 2010, the Dunedin conference in 2012 and this year (as a teacher of five and a half years!) in Wellington. Whilst perhaps being seen as geographically strategic, in that I have family in Christchurch, I live in Dunedin and I love Wellington, the NZATE Conference is always inspiring.  Sometimes I have been too damn tired to be too inspired, but it's always been worth it, and I've always felt ready to hit the third term (in some ways) because of it.

This year it has truly been epic. And this is why.

Day One really started with Day-One-Minus-One, in that snow was predicted to fall in Dunedin on PRECISELY the day I was supposed to fly out.  Now, my friends know that I am the first to initiate the teacher-snow-dance (perhaps a truly Dunedin phenomenon? Although I suspect teachers in Otago and Southland all practice this), but this time - Noooooo!  I had a plane to catch!  Day-One-Minus-One was really me ruing my decision not to pay that extra night's accommodation and fly up on Tuesday night. 

I thought I was being pretty clever by booking the 6.50am flight.  I'd arrive in Wellington at 8, jump on a bus and be ready to rock up to the registrations at 8.30am. Sweet.

And then, it snowed.  As predicted, for once.  

Our street.  And snow.

Still our street.  And still more snow.

 We are on a hill, so when it looks like this, you're pretty much stuffed as far as any kind of transportation goes.  Except for your own two legs.

I was under strict instructions to call the shuttle company at 4am, and so that's when the alarm went off. Ugh. That's early, even for me.  No shuttles were moving anyone anywhere on the hills, but if I could get down to the Railway Station, well the hallowed shuttle would be waiting for me.  But departing at 5am.  And so I hustled.  

It was beautiful walking in the snow at 4.45am.  That is, equal parts beautiful and manic.  But I made it.

The airport

I was greeted with 'there's ice on the runway and check-in is suspended.' Aghh and ugh. Glenn Colquhoun's keynote and writing workshop were still within the realms of possibililty and hope at this stage - he was one of the reasons (after geography!) that I was attending this conference.

And then we waited.  And waited.  And waited. Five hours in the end.  Enough time to run my phone battery down.  

It looked like this.

Ad nauseam.  This was only 8am.  We took off at 11am.

You are keeping me from Glenn Coulquhoun!!!

Pretty.  Sigh.

The plane.  Five hours of looking at the plane.

Arty

And then ... finally!! At 11am, we were in the air.  I was just hoping to make lunch at this stage; anything else was going to be a boon.  I had lived a lifetime in a morning.  I was the water in the river.

So here is proof I'm here now: it's supposed to snow in Wellington.  It's stalking me; making me pay for all those years of southern snow-dancing (fellow southerners, you KNOW what I'm talking about!)

But more's the point - here's the Beehive.

From the bus.  I really think you can sense my relief in this picture.

I did manage to both arrive for lunch and corner Glenn Coulquhoun to say nothing original and everything cliched: 'you're my favourite poet and I like your poems and I teach your poems and I JUST WANT YOU TO KNOW I'VE BEEN SITTING AT DUNEDIN AIRPORT THINKING ABOUT YOU.'  He was very polite, of course, and said he didn't want to add insult to injury, but that the workshop really was very good because English teachers are so receptive.  I recovered from this dagger to the heart by once more blabbing at him about something unmemorable and insignificant.  He was stoked, of course. Jokes. Ah well, the lunch was good, and my triomphe ultime was making it in time to enjoy it.  Small victories, by this stage, were clawed at desperately.

The afternoon workshop went by in a blur - I have lots to ponder and write about at a later date on group work and mixing students up - but I'm seeing double, so not now.  Karen Melhuish-Spencer made some salient points, but I felt pretty comfortable in the fact that I'd considered a lot of what was discussed.  I loved the 'Todaysmeet' stream - this allowed the audience to 'live comment' on the presentation. Cool, except my phone died because of the DAMN airport thing.  More adding of insult to injury: someone called my rapidly-flattening battery a 'rookie mistake' on the live feed.  I nearly stood up to demand they show their face.

www.todaysmeet.com.  Good times, although my phone died.

Righto, that's all for Day One.  Hopefully tomorrow is less epically eventful and more educational.  I'm excited about hearing Bernard Beckett talk about narrative and teaching it - tools I can use.  Excellent.

http://www.bookcouncil.org.nz/writers/beckettbernard.html