== Edinburgh : Part 1 ==
[ Sunday, 21 May 2006 ]
I left halls at about 8am and guess who drove the U1 that morning.. It was the infamous Sikh driver.. All the way to Highfield Interchange, we kept talking and at one point, he actually stopped driving at one of the bus stops.. I thought maybe he was running early so we just continued chatting.. But a few minutes later, we were still stationary.. So I grew worried and I asked him why was he stopping.. He asked me what's the rush and I said I needed to catch my coach to Heathrow.. So he (reluctantly) drove off.. Then when we got to the interchange, I got off his bus but he didn't close the doors and so he proceeded to talk some more.. So there I was, standing on the curb trying helplessly to convince him to go! He asked why did I want him to leave so much and I feigned innocence by saying I didn't want him to be late.. LOL.. In the end, he left.. Phew..
A few minutes later, I met A, my travelling partner.. She's a PhD student from Algeria and she's a volunteer at the WWW2006 conference too.. We took the 8.40am coach and off we went to Edinburgh.. The flight was OK.. As soon as we were about to land, I saw huge yellow rapeseed fields that contrasted with the lush green landscape.. It was beautiful :)
After getting our luggage, we were running late for the volunteers' meeting so we took a cab to EICC where the conference was being held.. We met J, the volunteers' chair and all the other volunteers too.. It was quite an international mix of people.. We had a few Indians, Canadians, Americans, Africans, etc.. But I was quite surprised not to find any Chinese guys.. Almost everybody in the room were professionals or postgrads doing some cutting edge research and when I sat there, I just told myself to look as confident as possible even though God knows how intimidated I was..
J told us what to do as volunteers.. Basically we only had to help man the registration desks and do headcounts for each conference session.. During refereed papers, we introduce the chair to the speakers.. If something's wrong with the AV or computer equipment in the room, get someone who can fix it for you and occasionally you're allowed to poke people if they're snoring.. Then for our initiation rite, we had to carry a busload of bags around.. It was quite a fun way of getting to know your fellow volunteers :D
After the meeting, we were brought to our accommodation which was two miles away.. As soon as we got there, we waited for our flat allocations to be sorted out.. It turned out that the volunteers and the ECS people were sharing the same accommodation.. A bit of drama went on as people got moved here and there but in the end me and A ended up sharing the same flat as I and R, our two ECS friends :)
That night, we ordered 3 large pizzas.. I watched my first Doctor Who episode in the company of ECS's upper echelon :P
[ Monday, 22 May 2006 ]
First day at work.. We were expected to be at EICC by 8am but since we missed the earlier bus, we had to wait for the next one at 8am.. Not exactly a good start.. But at least we saw first hand Edinburgh's rush hour at its finest.. At one point, there were three bus stops on the same stretch of the road, abt 200 metres apart from each other.. Really weird.. But as soon as we got there, I plunged straight into the action..
Registration.
That morning, there were hundreds of people lining up for their badges and delegate packs.. The desks were separated into different surname groups and each was manned by at least two volunteers.. The pace was relentless.. One after another, we kept handing out bags, badges and tickets in quick succession..
I think the most cruel of tortures we volunteers did was the torment of sending people off to the enquiries desk.. You see, some delegates were marked as unpaid and so we had to send them over to the enquiries desk which had a queue almost triple the size of all the other queues.. I felt really horrible sending them off because they would glare in exasperation before trudging their way towards the back of the enquiries line.. By lunchtime, the registration desks grew emptier and so we volunteers just hung around getting to know each other better.. In the afternoon, we had an assembly line going where we moved like robots from one "station" to another as we filled up more bags with programmes, leaflets, CDs, lanyards, etc..
That night, we had Ceilidh, some traditional Scottish dancing.. It was the first time I danced in my entire life.. The food was excellent.. No meat! Yay! We had grilled fish, jacket potatoes, cheese and vegetable salsa.. The company was great too.. I talked to H, a fellow volunteer.. He's a very cool guy.. Used to play drums in a band and likes Irish music.. He's due to present a paper that was nominated as the Best Student Paper award for this conference..
BTW, I don't think I'm a good dancer :P
To be continued..
::
NHA at 2:36 AM ::
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