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G'day, guys! Welcome to this episode.
What's going on? What is going on?
I've had way too much coffee today
so, I thought I would get on here and
make an episode today to chat to you
about my weekend and how it went in
Shepparton.

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Right? So, I might have mentioned
this in, I think one of the more
reason to Walking With Pete episodes,
but I'm not sure if I mentioned it
more recently than that, but I was
contracted to do a workshop or
actually two workshops in Shepparton
starting yesterday. That was the
first one, on the 10th of May, and
there's another one on the 24th of
May in Shepparton so, obviously if
any of you guys are from Shepparton
and you're trying to improve your
English, come along to the one on the
24th which will be at the St Paul's
African House.

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So, I thought I would make this
episode and tell you about what
happened, how it went, my experience
as it was the first time I have ever
done a workshop, ever run a workshop,
ever created a workshop. It was also
the first time that I've ever taught
a class of students, let alone a
class of African students and it was
just a really interesting experience
so, I thought I would share that with
you, guys. So, yesterday so,
obviously Kel's pregnant and she's
like eight...she's almost nine
months, in fact I think two days,
yeah. Monday, on Monday, it's
Saturday today. On Monday she'll be
nine months pregnant, 36 weeks so,
the baby could be born at any time
currently.

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So, when the guy from the Lutheran
Church there in Shepparton got in
contact with me, Steve. Big shout out
to Steve, thanks for inviting me out
there. When he got in contact with me
I was like yeah I can do this but
we'll have to work out doing it
before June because the baby's due
and obviously I don't want one miss
the birth and too not be here for Kel
if she needs a lot of help with a
newborn baby. So, he sort of rushed
about, got it all organised and we
set the dates for in May and so,
yesterday I drove Kel to one of our
friend's houses and she stayed there
for the night because she wanted to
be with someone who if in the off
chance she ended up going into labour
and, you know, having to go to the
hospital she would have someone there
to drive her to the hospital in
Geelong.

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So, I drove her up to... Where was
that? Point Cook on the way through
Melbourne and then I drove all the
way up to Shepparton.

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So, it's about three hours and a bit
from Ocean Grove and then it was it's
a kind of crazy drive all the way up
from Melbourne to Shepparton that's
the Hume Freeway, which it's a nice
road to drive on but it was raining
really heavily so that was
interesting, the storms, I don't know
if you guys are in Victoria, but you
may have noticed there's been a lot
of rain and wind and storms the last
few days and when I was driving up
there there was tons of rain, it was
bucketing down, it was raining cats
and dogs, the heavens were opening up
and there was just water everywhere.
So, it was a little nerve wracking at
times because we had these big road
trains or I guess big trucks on the
road passing or me passing them and I
always get nervous when I have to
pass those huge trucks especially
when you're travelling incredibly
quickly.

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I think it like 110 ks an hour and
it's raining and it's night-time, but
yeah got there safely, obviously,  it
was really beautiful actually once I
was maybe, I don't know, two thirds
of the way there, the rain stopped
the clouds passed and I could see the
sun, the sky kind of opened up and I
could watch the sunset so, there were
all these really beautiful farms
nearby with crops, with animals, with
livestock in the paddocks and lots of
trees and everything with really long
shadows because of sunset. So, it was
really nice, it was golden hour,
right? Where the sun's low and the
light goes gold, there's water
everywhere, reflections. So, it was
really kind of cool driving in with
you know I don't know 20 minutes of
that to enjoy before getting to
Shepparton.

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Once I got to Shepparton, I sort of
had to drive around a bit and then
find where I was staying as Steve had
organised a hotel or motel for me,
right? A hotel I guess is... I guess
that's somewhere you can stay without
a car, but a motel is where you can
drive and park your car in front of
the room that you're staying in.

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So, it was a motel which was good and
I got set up there, chilled out for a
bit, had a shower, you know, got
changed and then drove straight up to
the St Paul's African House, got
ready. It wasn't perfect, there was a
bit of mucking about a bit of trying
to organize the PowerPoint show. So,
it's one of those things, right?
Anything that can go wrong usually
does go wrong. Where we were trying
to set up the PowerPoint presentation
that I've got. I had videos, I had
slides, I had everything like that on
there and the chords seemed to be ok,
but not for my model of Mac or Apple
computer.

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So, I've got one of these newer
models and the output jacks that they
have on the Apple computer are really
inconvenient because they've changed
it to a different kind. I had a
certain dongle, which is the thing
that you plug in to your laptop so
that other things can then plug into
the dongle, but none of the outputs
on that fit any of the cords. So, I
had to use Steve's computer. He had a
laptop except the screen on his
laptop wasn't working so, we had to
kind of like plug it in and get it
working and then load everything up
because, even though the screen on
his computer wasn't working, the
PowerPoint from the projector on the
wall you could see it once the cable
was plugged into his computer.

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But the annoying thing was that all
the videos that I had made for the
slideshow and everything to show a
bit of Australian culture, a bit of
Australian greetings and swearing a
few of these things, slang, all those
videos didn't work on his computer
for whatever reason, I think they
must have been in a certain style, a
certain format that didn't work on
his computer. So, that was annoying
because I had to try and kind of use
my computer to show them, but there
was you know 20 or so Africans
sitting around trying to look at one
small computer screen with a whole
bunch of Aussies and there were some
Americans there as well trying to
take part, but it was all good fun
and was all good fun.

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It didn't go to plan, it wasn't
perfect and to be honest we didn't
even get through half way, I think,
maybe maybe about halfway through the
slides that I had made for the entire
workshop before the end of the night
sort of came, it came to a close, but
it was good, it was funny, they had
organised food for the Africans there
as well so, that there was a bunch of
Australian food like meat pies with
tomato sauce. There was some cordial,
which is like sugary drink right.
With different flavours and there
were lamingtons, there are a few
other things as well that I think
I've forgotten, but that was good, it
was interesting, some of them liked
it, some of them weren't so fond of
the Australian food. The Australian
Tucker so he sort of had a break in
the middle and did that.

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I was teaching them some slang words,
I got them in one activity to give
themselves nicknames so, they had to
try and come up with nicknames and
some of them, I think, the Sudanese
girls there had massive names. I
didn't realise how long the Sudanese
names are for people. So, it was
crazy going around meeting them all
and them telling me their entire
names, some of them had like ten, ten
names in their full name and I was
like how on earth do you remember
this? This is crazy!

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So, yeah is really, really fun. It is
really interesting. The thing that I
guess sort of blew my mind was that
they were all from Africa, but
obviously they spoke completely
different languages. So, there was a
group that spoke Swahili. There was
another group that spoke French, from
Congo. There was another group that
spoke another language that I've
forgotten from the top my head, the
Sudanese spoke another language as
well so, it sort of you know was a
"no dah!" moment like as soon as you
think about it you're like oh, of
course, they speak different
languages, but usually the stereotype
you know I guess as an Australian you
kind of see a group of Africans
hanging out together and you assume
they're all from the same place and
all speak the same language.

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But yeah, it was really cool and I
got to practice some of my French. I
was chatting to some of the guys from
Congo, one of them was a Christian
minister and he was really, really
enthusiastic about learning some of
the slang and some of the expressions
that was, it was funny trying to get
them to talk, right? They were very
shy. They were very introverted and I
had to work hard to kind of try and
get them to come out of their shells,
to talk a bit more, to shout, to ask
questions. But they did, they did in
the end, it was good.

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But yeah, it was really fun showing
him that I had learnt a little bit of
French and you know was interested in
learning languages and could
communicate with him in his native
language and he seemed to really
lighten up, I guess, and relax as
soon as he saw that hey, this guy is
trying to speak my native language
and isn't very good, but he's still
trying. So, I think it was a success.
I think I might have made the
workshop a little too advanced to
begin with and that was the hard
thing for me, I didn't realize how
much and Steve had kind of warned me
about this, but I didn't realize how
much variability there would be in
the students who came and it was
interesting seeing the youngest
students or the youngest Africans
there who'd migrated with their
parents to Australia, they spoke
really, really well because they'd
been going to school every day, you
know, and they'd been here for a
year, for two years, for three years.
So, they were pretty effectively
Australians, right? You know, well,
they are Australians, but they were
effectively speaking English like
just like Australian kids.

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And so, it was interesting how those
guys were effectively natives and
then you had their parents who
effectively spoke, you know, barely
any words at all. They could say
hello. They could say goodbye and
then there were some middle aged
people from the Congo who some of
them spoke a little bit of English.
There was one guy who was really
good, again, probably if I can be so
brash as to say probably about my
level in Portuguese, right? So, I've
been spending a few years learning
Portuguese. I consider myself pretty
fluent now, but he was about the same
level there. So it was...Long story
short, it was an interesting exercise
to try and be not too boring for the
advanced students, but also not too
advanced and too difficult to
understand for the beginning
students.

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So, that was really hard to kind of
juggle and to work out how to keep
everyone involved and to keep
everyone up to speed with what I was
talking about. So, that was the sort
of the exercise that I had to sort
of...I don't know, what would you
say, I was flying by the seat of my
pants. So, I was kind of improvising,
but I think it was good fun. There
were a lot of them laughing, there
are a lot of them getting involved
and it was really funny there was one
lady from Sudan who kept hitting on
me. She kept flirting with me. So, I
really liked her. She had a bit of
attitude, it was really funny, but
afterwards the Australians there who
run the church were telling me she
never talks. She never says anything!
I've never seen her talk this much
so, I must have been doing something
right to obviously get her to come
out of her shell a little bit and use
English and relax and be much more
expressive.

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So, yeah, I thought I would give you
the update on how that went. I'm
looking forward to doing the next one
in two weeks. Who knows if I'll have
a kid by then or not. See how it
goes, but yeah I thought I would keep
you up to let you guys know about how
that went. My experience, it was
really good fun, big thanks to St
Paul's African House and to Steve
again for inviting me and getting me
up to Shepparton, looking forward to
doing the second one. Unfortunately,
there's no expression episode out
this week, guys, because I've just
been so busy working on this workshop
and driving around, I'm about to head
back up to Melbourne now for a
friend's going away party. He
actually got a job at Google and has
to move to Sydney so, I have to go
see him.

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A lot of miles on the road this
weekend, but it was worth it. Hope
you enjoyed this episode, guys, there
are quite a few expressions that I
used in there so, go back and see if
you can hear how I used come out of
his shell and fly by the seat of your
pants.

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Those kinds of expressions, they're
good ones and I'll see next week!
Peace!