Polyglot Gathering Diary: The Gathering
This years Gathering, I was really everywhere. I think that most people think: Whenever, I visit any activities, I see Marta. Well, this was fun for me and it made my Gathering unforgettable. It was mostly about what I was doing during the days.
Friday
The first day of the Gathering, it was the first online Gathering. It was about to start at 15:00, but my first task was at 16:00. I was a content moderator during the Klingon crash course. It was really interesting (the review will be in Crash course section soon). I was picking the question for the speaker. It was a quite new task for me, but I had a few more chances to master my skills during the rest of the days.
At 17:00, we had an opening ceremony, where I was proud to invite everyone people to the Panel Discussion, Quizzes, discussions, interviews, Lightning Talks, reminded about free chatrooms and a concert of jOmO. This was the first time, when I was a part of the opening ceremony. It is of course because I was not an official organizer last years.
Afterwards, I had a couple hours to get ready for the Epic Polyglot Quiz the same evening. It looks like there is not much work to host the quiz. It is not completely true. I had to select the participants, make sure they will show up (but have a back up just in case). I had to write down all the rules, because I did not want to forget them during the quiz night. Anyway, it was an amazing experience and I am so glad that I did it 🙂
After the quiz, I could have a little time to rest as I had some other speeches and responsibilities for the next day 🙂
Saturday
I started my Saturday with my usual morning walk. This is interesting because usually during the Gathering, I never have time in the morning and am always late for the first talk (once it was my own talk!). In the morning, we also had a cute informal meeting for content moderators. I did not have any duties till 12:00, when I had my talk “Public Speaking for language learning“. I spoke Polish during the talk, as I was telling about my experience and how public speaking helped me to polish my Polish 😀 It was a bit shorter, than I expected, but I heard a few positive comments after it, so I think, it did not matter so much.
After, I was done with the talk, I felt more freely, although there was much to do afterwards. I visited a talk about Interslavic language, I was content moderator again during the Basics of Belarusian workshop and a talk about Listening-Reading method, which by the way, I would not use. Meanwhile, I was visiting language exchange rooms of Ukrainian. My end of the day was with one more Epic Polyglot Quiz, hosting which I enjoyed even more, than the previous day.
Before going to bed, I listened to jOmO concert, which for technical reason did not happen at the same time, as the Quiz, so I had a chance to be there 🙂
Sunday
The best day ever! First of all, even though the previous days were really intense, I was not lazy and went for a walk. Nevertheless, I had to hurry a bit, as I had Ukrainian chat room at 8:00, another cute informal meeting of content moderators. What was the best about it, that Tim Keeley visited the language exchange chatroom at the same time and he said that he liked my speech about public speaking! This is unbelievable! Tim Keeley liked my speech! This was the best part of the day 🙂
Later, I have moderated Introduction to Basque, Big Data and Language Learning, Neuroscience for Language Learners, When can I say I speak a language talks, and visited a few language exchange rooms. The most active part of my day started in the evening.
First, the closing ceremony, were I invited everyone to Poland next year (I have forgotten some things that I wanted to say. That was funny).
After that I did my Quenya crash course.
The last but not the least – Polyglots Have Got Talent show, which I hosted together with Elisa. There was a funny situation, when the sound disappeared for one of the participants, someone wrote in the chat that Marta should sing while he plays the guitar in the background. I asked them not to dare me like this 😀 but there were a few more comments. This was really pleasant for me! Anyway, I planned to sing for this Talent show, but did not risk doing it online. If the next year, everything will be good and the Gathering will be in Poland, I will definitely sing during the Talent show or Multilingual Karaoke 🙂
In any case, the show was such a success! People really enjoyed it, so the organizers created a chat room for talents, where we sang, people played instruments etc. This was really fun.
Monday
This was my relax day. After my walk, there was no cute meeting for moderators. I think, we all were a bit tired at that point. I did not have any speeches, workshops or moderation. I just visited the interview and a talk, gathered some interesting ideas. I did not want the Gathering to finish, so I visited the chatrooms in the evening. This was an important moment for me. This was the moment, where I was inspired to learn an indigenous language and to do some charity! Let’s see, how it all will work.
