Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 344, At the Convention Center.
This is English as a Second Language podcast episode 344.
I'm your host, Dr Jeff McQuillan, coming to you from the Center for Educational Development at In beautiful but today a little rainy Los Angeles, California.
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This episode is called At the Convention Center.
We're going to go to a conference or a convention.
I'm going to talk about typical vocabulary associated with going to a professional conference.
Let's get started.
I left my hotel early so I would arrive at the convention center in time for my presentation.
But the bad traffic made me late.
My presentation was supposed to start at 2 o'clock and it was already 1.55.
To make matters worse, I had never been to this convention center before, and I didn't know my way around.
I walked into the foyer and looked around.
I was hoping to see a registration booth or the speaker's room, where I was sure someone could point me in the right direction.
I walked down one hallway and found the main ballroom but it was empty.
I saw a sign for meeting rooms upstairs and went up the escalator.
But when I got to the second floor I didn't see anyone around.
I looked over the landing hoping to get my bearings but that was no help.
By this time I was sweating bullets.
The clock was ticking and I was late.
Then I woke up.
It wasn't the first time I had a nightmare like this ever. and I knew it wouldn't be the last.
I wonder what my subconscious is trying to tell me.
At least this time, I was wearing my pants.
Our story begins when I say I left my hotel early So I would arrive at the convention center in time for my presentation.
A convention center is a large building that is used for large group meetings.
There's usually a place for people to sit.
There is a set of large rooms there where people can give presentations or speeches information about their particular topic.
Convention centers can be found in almost every big city in the US and probably in the world.
There are places where businesses and professional groups come together for large meetings.
My story continues, But the bad traffic made me late.
There were so many cars or some problems on the freeways that I wasn't getting to the convention center at the time.
I thought I was.
My presentation was supposed to start at 2 o'clock and it was already 155, that is, 5 minutes before 2 o'clock.
The expression to make matters worse means the same as even worse.
It's a phrase we use to show that what you are about to say is not true is worse than all of the other things you have talked about before.
So, for example, I walked up to the beautiful woman and I asked her for her telephone number.
She looked at me and she laughed.
To make matters worse, she threw her drink into my face.
She laughed.
That was bad.
But even worse was the drink she threw in my face.
Fortunately, I had another shirt in the car.
I say that I didn't know my way around.
To know your way around someplace—for example, I know my way around Los Angeles— means you are familiar with an area, so you know where it is and how to get to the places you want to go.
If you've lived in a place for a long time, you probably know your way around it.
I walked into the foyer and looked around.
The foyer was F-O-Y-E-R, is the same as a lobby.
It's a large open space at the entrance of a hotel or a theater, perhaps even an airport.
It's a place where people can meet before going into the smaller rooms where the meetings and the presentations are.
So I walked into the foyer, and which is almost always the entrance of a convention center, and I looked around.
I was hoping to see a registration booth or the speaker's room, where I was sure someone could point me in the right direction.
The registration booth was is a table at a conference or a convention where people can register.
That is, say, I want to go here or I am here.
Normally the registration booth gives you a bag or a folder of information related to the conference.
You will often get a badge that B-A-D-G-E.
A badge is a little piece of paper, usually put in plastic, that has your name on it, and perhaps your organization.
So when I used to go to conferences for language acquisition as a university professor and They would have my name and then my university and I would wear the badge.
I would put the badge on me.
You can either hang the badge around your neck or sometimes you can use a little pin, a sharp object, in the back of the badge to put the badge on your shirt.
That's the registration booth, the place where you register, where you sign up for an event.
The speaker's room is a special room for the people who are giving the presentations.
A speaker is someone who gives a speech or a presentation.
I thought if I went to the speaker's room, I was sure someone could point me in the right direction.
To point someone in the right direction means to tell or show someone who is lost where they need to go.
You could even use this if you were asking for directions from someone.
You could say, could you point me in the right direction of the bank?
I'm interested in robbing it.
That would be an example of pointing someone in the right direction, even if it's for the wrong reason.
The story continues, I walked down one hallway and found the main ballroom.
A hallway is a long narrow room with many doors that go into other rooms. not exactly a room.
It's a long space.
And there are doors that lead to other rooms, to smaller rooms or to larger rooms.
So it's a way that you get from one part of the building to another in order to get to a different room in the building.
We have hallways in Houses.
Sometimes we have a hallway in most buildings business offices and so forth.
So I walked down one hallway and found the main ballroom.
The ballroom in a conference center or a convention center or a hotel is a large room, usually one of the largest rooms that can hold many people.
You can put many people in there for a dinner, for a speech, for dancing.
The word ballroom is originally associated with dancing.
In fact, there's an expression ballroom dancing, where you dance formal dances like the rumba and the waltz.
I found that the ballroom was empty.
I also saw a sign for meeting rooms upstairs, and so I went up the escalator.
Meeting rooms are smaller rooms where you can hear a presentation or a speech.
There are usually several meeting rooms in a convention center, small rooms that hold maybe 50 or 100 people, sometimes even smaller.
The escalator is that machine, basically they are moving stairs.
You stand on it and the stairs take you up to the next level, the next floor.
The other way of getting from one floor to another, from one level to another, is an elevator, where you get in a little box and the box goes up straight up and then you walk out of the box.
The doors open and close.
For an escalator, you just get on the stairs and the stairs move and take you to the next level.
When I got to the second floor, however, I didn't see anyone around.
So I went up the escalator and I didn't see anyone.
I looked over the landing, hoping to get my bearings, but that was no help.
The landing is an open space at the top of a set of stairs that Usually where you can rest before moving into a room on that floor or perhaps going up another set of stairs.
So you have a building with three levels, three floors.
You walk up the stairs to the first floor, and there's a landing, a small space where you can stand.
Then you can, if you want, walk up to the next level.
Landing has a couple of different meanings in English.
Take a look at our learning guide for some additional explanations.
The expression to get your bearings, B-E-A-R-I-N-G-S means to look around and understand where you are after having been lost.
To orient yourself is another way of saying this.
You try to see where am I. That's to get your bearings.
Well, by this time I was late and so I was sweating bullets.
The expression to sweat bullets means to be extremely nervous or worried about something.
I was sweating bullets because I was late.
The clock, I say, was ticking.
To tick means T-I-C-K, means to make a quick, repetitive tapping noise.
Often it's the sound you hear on a clock tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick, as the second hand of the clock goes from one second to the next second, to the next second.
To say the clock is ticking, however, means that time is short.
You don't have very much time.
In this case, I was late.
At the end of the story, I say, This was all a dream.
This didn't really happen.
It wasn't the first time I had a nightmare like this.
I wonder what my subconscious is trying to tell me, I ask.
Your subconscious is the not conscious part of your mind, something that you can't control, that you may not even be aware of, in fact, are usually not aware of the subconscious.
At least this time I say, I was wearing my pants.
Many people have dreams sometimes of walking out onto the street with no clothes on.
That would be a nightmare.
If you're interested in not having nightmares about your convention experience if you're going to a conference, take a look at our cultural note in this episode, where we talk about how to make your conference experience better.
Now let's listen to the story, this time at a normal speed.
I left my hotel early so I would arrive at the convention center in time for my presentation, but the bad traffic made me late.
My presentation was supposed to start at 2 o'clock, and it was already 1.55.
To make matters worse, I had never been to this convention center before, and I didn't know my way around.
I walked into the foyer and looked around.
I was hoping to see a registration booth or the speaker's room, where I was sure someone could point me in the right direction.
I walked down one hallway and found the main ballroom, but it was empty.
I saw a sign for meeting rooms upstairs and went up the escalator.
But when I got to the second floor, I didn't see anyone around.
I looked over the landing, hoping to get my bearings, but that was no help.
By this time I was sweating bullets.
The clock was ticking and I was late.
Then I woke up.
It wasn't the first time I had a nightmare like this and I knew it wouldn't be the last.
I wonder what my subconscious is trying to tell me.
At least this time I was wearing my pants.
The script for this episode was written by our own Dr Lucy Say, who's been to many convention centers throughout the world.
From Los Angeles, California, I'm Jeff McQuillan.
Thanks for listening.
We'll see you next time on ESL Podcast.
English as a Second Language Podcast is written and produced by Dr Lucy Say, hosted by Dr Jeff McQuillan.
This podcast is copyright 2008.
