My First DepEd Meeting

I got another "fun" invitation the other day. Every year, SIL and the Philippines Department of Education (DepEd) meet together to talk about how the translations are doing. Since I'm really important, I was invited to come along.

Actually, I was invited to run the PowerPoint slides.

The meeting room was pretty impressive. The tables were set up in a big "U" shape, and everybody got their own microphone and speaker--like you see at the UN. On the inside of the "U" was one small table with a chair. That's where the PowerPoint guy (me) was supposed to sit. I realized then that the Secretary of the Department of Education was going to be sitting directly behind me, staring at the back of my head. And everybody else's chair in the room was going to be pointed at me, too. That's alright...I can be the center of attention.

As I was setting up the computer and the projector, I realized that something was wrong. Very wrong. The projector and the computer were not talking to each other, and all I was projecting onto the wall was a blank screen.

Then, the meeting began. Needless to say, I became just a little frantic.

As the Secretary began giving his opening remarks, I sat there in THE CENTER OF THE ROOM, fiddiling with wires, pushing buttons, and generally creating a quiet havoc while everyone else watched.

The Secretary of Education (standing) delivers his opening remarks to the SIL/DepEd meeting.

I'm sure all of my SIL collegues were thinking, "I wonder how the new guy is going to pull this off..."

Finally, the Director of SIL Philippines, Greg, leaned over and asked if his computer would work. God bless that man--I didn't realize that someone else had brought another laptop. So, I plugged it up to the projector, and it worked! Actually, it worked a little too well. It projected a picture of Greg and his family on the wall, which shouldn't really happen in a high-profile meeting like this. I didn't care. I had a computer and a projector that were working fine.

I managed to get all of the files moved over between the two computers, and everything was ready to roll, and I still had about 10 minutes to spare before the first slide was to be shown.

Man, meetings can be brutal...

That's my "I'm Really Frantic" Face.