My first music festival

Well last weekend I attended my first proper music festival i.e. not a one day festival where you get to go home at the end of the day. I attended a local music festival called Stendhal Festival which is set in Limavady (Northern Ireland). I had come close to attending before especially last year but ended up not being fussed on the idea of camping especially last year when I was in the middle of writing up my PhD thesis. It's been running for a number of years now and has a very good reputation as being a great local music festival that caters to those of all ages. It has musical acts, comedy acts and plenty of things for kids to do including workshops and other fun activities.

I went with my brother and our mutual friend, me and my brother left on Friday morning and had to battle the Belfast traffic to pick up our friend then we had a long drive to Limavady, It wasn't the most reassuring drive as we drove through periods of very heavy rain. Thankfully we arrived in the sunshine and were able to get our tent set up. We were eager to get into the main site and start enjoying the festival and we were able to start with the wonderful Malojian. I really love his music but hadn't had the pleasure of seeing him live. It was a lovely way to start my first Stendhal, By the way I definitely recommend watching a documentary about how he went to Chicago to record an album with the famous Steve Albini.

The rest of the Friday was good, I saw the Ulster Orchestra play with a number of different female artists, saw Hunkpapa (unfortunately their set was cut short) and saw Jealous Of The Birds among other acts. Me and my brother had very nice pizza for dinner. Unfortunately the Friday night was rather cold especially if you were wearing welly boots which have no insulation! It did stay dry but a number of the stages were under cover anyway. It was rather late by the time we were heading back to the tent but I slept surprisingly well.  I had bought a "self-inflating" mattress for £10 which worked quite well, I was also prepared and had brought a plastic lunch box to keep my hearing aid and my glasses in whilst I was sleeping. I probably slept better than my brother and our friend given that I couldn't hear most of the noise from the campsite!

Joshua Burnside was last on the bill on Friday night:

We got up on Saturday morning to glorious sunshine and I even put sun cream on the back of my neck just in case (probably should've put it on my face as well given I ended up somehow getting sunburnt despite the rest of the day not actually being that sunny!). I had a sausage bap for breakfast and then we started the day with the wonderful Glass Wings. The rest of the day I was all over the site at all the different stages not just for music but for a live comedy podcast as well as comedians as well. Highlights of the second day were Runabay, Rebekah Fitch, Hand Models and also Cormac Neeson of the The Answer with his side project. He and his band played on a small stage in the woods and it was such a great set. Embrace were the headliners on Saturday night, I like their old stuff but when the rain was pouring down and they are faffing about with an out of tune guitar and asking us to wish their tour manager or whatever happy birthday it didn't do much for me. We ended up going over to catch a bit of Brand New Friend who are definitely making waves now before going up to the other end of the site to catch the always fantastic Wood Burning Savages.

The weather had turned on Saturday evening and we ended up making the decision to pack up our tent and everything else and leave it back in the car. It meant that since we weren't that fussed on the band that were closing the festival we could leave slightly early and sleep in beds with a roof over our heads rather than a tent in the pouring rain (and then have to pack up a wet tent as well). Overall I really enjoyed my first festival experience. Obviously I was tired after it but it had helped that the weather had been so nice and we had been able to sit on the grass to enjoy quite a few of the acts. Not sure if  I would enjoy it as much if it rains for two days straight. I would definitely consider going back next year and now I have done it once I know a lot better what to expect and what I need to bring and what I definitely don't need to bring.

Thanks for reading.

Jobs, applications and interviews

There has been some debate recently on the TCS Facebook groups and it has got a little bit heated at times. The topic of debate is whether or not to let employers know that you have a condition, how it affects you etc. There are some people who have the opinion that they want the job on merit, that their condition has no impact on their ability to do the job and there is no reason to notify employers. Obviously it's hard not to wonder that the different attitudes may be down to people living in different countries, it's hard to know. It is something that I've had to think a fair bit about since I have been job hunting for quite a while now and have now attended five job interviews in the past few months.

Personally I have the belief that it is better to be upfront about things especially when I look noticeably different and people who don't know me find it difficult to understand me. That said it does depend on the person, some people make more of an effort to understand me than others. There are disability acts which are meant to prevent discrimination against disabled people and employers are expected to make reasonable adjustments for people who are disabled. I used to hate the term disabled with it making me think of people who were confined to wheelchairs or blind etc. that said I've come to realise that it is just a term used to describe people who are at a disadvantage. There is no shame in allowing for things to level the playing field.

I do not mention that I have TCS on my CV and I only mention it on job applications if it specifically asks about disabilities. I only make the employer aware of it if I am invited for interview. In some cases they ask you to fill out a monitor form which often has a question about any disabilities. Even in those cases I make sure to include a paragraph in my email accepting the invitation to interview about my TCS. I do not feel it is fair for me or for the interviewers for me to turn up and surprise them as it were. It is better for them to be prepared to accommodate me and not be distracted by the way I look/talk and not know why.

This is what I wrote for my recent job interview, it is slightly edited:
As I have noted in the completed Application for Employment Addendum I have Treacher Collins Syndrome as a result of which  I am hearing impaired and have some difficulties with articulation when communicating orally. I would therefore request that this be taken into account during the interview in terms of time allowed. I have been advised by a employment adviser at Action on Hearing Loss that it might be helpful if I could be provided with a written copy of the interview questions on the day. I would be happy to respond to questions in writing, but only should there be any difficulty in the interviewers understanding of my speech. 


Unfortunately this doesn't always work out. One interview I had a while back was very awkward as the HR person clearly misunderstood my email and I ended up having to write down all my answers to the questions despite saying I would be happy to answer them orally. When I went back to them by email after the interview to clarify this I was then invited to go all the way back to receive oral feedback, which I declined and thankfully got written feedback instead.

For my most recent interview I was given short notice with the interview only being a few days later. I sent the email accepting the invitation along with the paragraph above both in the employment form and in the email. Unfortunately the interview invitations was being handled by a placement student, who did not pass on the information. I went into the interview and it was clear that they were slightly taken aback and the person leading the panel had to interrupt me to let me know she was struggling to understand me and asked if that was why I had brought the notepad with me. The rest of the interview was a combination of me writing some of my answers down and answering others orally. The members of the interview panel were very friendly and overall I thought the interview went quite well. After the interview I asked my employment adviser to ring them to clarify that I had sent the information about my condition. It turns out that after the interview the person leading the panel actually went and checked if they had received any information and found out that the placement student had been off the day before the interview and hadn't passed the information on. It is unfortunate but they handled it well.

The best interview I have probably had which led to the paragraph I now send as shown above was actually for a job in a university. They gave me the questions they were going to ask me on a sheet of paper. I was allowed to answer the questions orally. I was then asked to write down the answers to the questions in a separate room. These were taken back into the interview panel for them to look at before I was brought back into the room to answer some more questions and to clarify some things.

Obviously everybody is different but I am happy with this method of dealing with interviews I have found that said I will be now asking them to confirm they have received my email before the interview. Unfortunately I know it is true that appearance is often everything that said by making them aware of it beforehand and making sure I can properly get across my skills/experience and more importantly personality then I think I might have a better chance of getting a job than turning up and expecting them to be able to understand me/not allowing me enough time etc.

In terms of my job hunt I'm now playing the waiting game. Waiting to hear back about an apitude test I completed last week, waiting to hear back about my most recent interview, waiting to hear back about other job applications I have sent in and I also have another interview in September. Wish me luck!