SciFest Diary - Day 2

At the end of my second day at Scifest I felt completely and utterly at a loss. Two days of collecting information, attending lectures, conducting interviews, vox pops and chatting to people have resulted in not one thing being put onto a computer. Pictures have not been uploaded, articles have not been written and deadline is tomorrow. Sigh, but I have faith that it will all get done (sucks thumb and tries to comfort self).

Today started off with a continuation of the "Makana's Weighty Problem" article. I organised an interview with Health Suite Manager Janet Kelly and interviews two local pharmacists about diet products. Hayley and I attempted to get vox pops, but found that most local Grahamstown residents are not that comfortable with discussing their weight issues with an online newspaper - hmm, funny that. As a result, we decided to get rid of the vox pop idea.

We attended the lecture called "The Differences Between Boys and Girls" for our article on women in science. I must admit I expected more controversy from the lecture, but what Prof. Bruton said was mainly that men and women, despite being different, need to work together to create a harmonious society. He was interesting though. So, as of yet, we have not explored this story further.

Hayley managed to work her magic with hypnotist Stephane Juncker to get us into his hypnosis show last night. Alas our cheap, green media passes did not permit us access. Thankfully, Stephan was obliging (a tad too much so) and we managed to exchange a tripod for two free seats to the performance. And what a peformance it was. Having never been to a hypnosis show before, I was intrigued. After the show, Hayley and I didn't have sufficient information to interview him, so we organised to interview him after his lecture on hynosis tomorrow afternoon. Pictures were difficult to get during the show, but we have gotten permission from a fourth year Strategic Media Planning (SMP) student, Stacy Nel to utilise photgraphs she managed to take at the show. We will credit her at the end of our slideshow.

I attempted to make a start on the text, but still feel very agitated because nothing is yet on paper and it is frustrating. But, tomorrow will be better as it is the deadline for our first multimedia package.

Wish us luck!