I’ve been on air for more than a year!

-

I dreaded the Rotary at Your Service broadcast during this year’s February Fair. Why? Because I never forgot that last year, I was learning the ropes at the LBFM radio booth, and I was committing major blunders on air… many seconds of dead air, leaving the microphone on while the music was playing (therefore, the supposedly off-air discussions were broadcast live), and appearing obviously rattled about it while continuing the broadcast. I had no excuse, except that I was learning how to operate the consoles independently, without any formal training. To add to the pressure, I co-hosted with one outstanding journalist (Tito Johnny, of the Rotary Club of West Bay).

Fast-forward to 2006. I have been going on board on my own for many episodes (when Tito Johnny was covering news assignments in Manila), and I was gaining confidence in the format of the program and in my skills. After all, I was more relaxed, and I no longer needed to prep the night before just to check if my script would last for an hour of monologue. But then again, it’s the FebFair broadcast, and anything was possible.

Turned out that there really was a surprise! I would do the broadcast independently (which wasn’t a surprise). To add to the pressure, live broadcast feeds from the Freedom Park where the Fair was held were added. I was briefed about it two minutes before I started the show, and the jock before me just rattled a list of to-do’s at a particular time (add a music bed for the news feed update). As the obedient host that I was, I played the music bed at precisely the right time. But then, a lady informed me that I was supposed to wait for 10 more minutes because the field reporters didn’t know I was ready for them. Some dead air passed, and I was struck dumb. Good thing the lady (the instructor for the field reporters’ class) had the presence of mind to say, "play something first!" So I did. Whew! Otherwise, I would have remained dumbfounded.

The rest of the Rotary broadcast and the live field reports went smoothly. But that episode reminded me that I always have to be on my toes for anything unexpected… this is why broadcasting is exciting!

Since I’ve started volunteering for the radio show, I have reason to be excited on Fridays. The show has been my relaxation time, my chance to de-stress after a hard week’s work.

Comments

Post a Comment

Thank you for dropping by!

Before moving on, please share your thoughts or comments about the post. :)

Thanks again!

Popular posts from this blog

10 things I learned while driving on Marcos Highway to Baguio City

-
I went on a day trip to the City of Pines, which was around a 700-km drive from my house. I drove  going up there and then from the city to Victoria, Tarlac. After that, my dad took over the driving duties. It was day trip with Tita Ising and Tito Sibing with us. Anyway, this trip was my first time to go to Baguio City with me behind the wheel. As everyone who drives up knows, there are three main routes to Baguio from the lowlands: Kennon Road, which ascends from Rosario, La Union. It was out of my options because it's too dangerous to use that road in the rainy season. The second route is via Naguilian Road, which makes my trip a lot longer because the beginning of the ascent is in Bauang, La Union (further north). The last route, and the one I took, was the Marcos Highway, now known as the Aspiras-Palispis Highway. This 47-km road starts from Agoo, La Union and is touted as the safest route among the three.  As I drove up and then down (on the same day; we were in...
Read more

Skyflakes

-
One of the more famous Philippine exports is Skyflakes , a wheat-based, salty cracker. It is one of my emergency food items: I typically have some stocked at home and in my handbag in case I become hungry (like in traffic jams). When there's no electricity and it's impractical to cook rice (because the leftover would spoil), I'd open a pack of Skyflakes and generously coat each cracker with Cheez Whiz... if I had a bottle of it within reach. Anyway, each time I spent more than two weeks outside the Philippines, I'd be elated to see boxes of Skyflakes inside Asian stores (particularly when in I was Australia and in the USA). Back then, I took it as a sign of homesickness. When I moved to California, I didn't miss Skyflakes because Mommy made sure that there's a steady supply in the house. Skyflakes is embedded in Filipino gastronomy as a snack, a panawid-gutom , that anyone who reacts positively upon seeing Skyflakes outside the Philippines must have spe...
Read more

Surat Mangyan

-
Image
In high school, part of the Filipino curriculum was learning about one of the country's ancient native scripts called Baybayin . I learned back then that this script was eventually abandoned because the Spanish, and eventually the Americans, encouraged the use of the Latin script for written communications. But that's in the lowlands; the rules were different up in the mountains. In the lush mountains of Mindoro, groups of indigenous people called Mangyans  live largely in isolation away from the Christianised Filipinos. This isolation has led to the continuous development of the Mangyans' old script, Surat Mangyan . As I walked inside the Ayala Museum , I saw this bamboo tube (I'm not sure if it's an instrument) with Mangyan script written all over it. I suppose that this was equivalent to a book or a song. But I haven't figured out what's written yet, despite the translation guide provided. What I can do, however, is write my name in Ma...
Read more