When asked if there was anything I’d like to do for 5-8 minutes, I figured the truly interesting and rather unique anecdotes in my blog all revolved around my interactions with immigration officials through my travels.

During SxSW, I heard about Fray Cafe, which is the live version of Fray (now on hiatus). It’s an open mic held annually where participants told true stories for 5mins each. Glenda did one last year about how she met Flavor Flav. So in addition to getting Nicole to tell her excellent story on getting married, I figured I may as well use this as an opportunity to do a warm up for Lap-Pop. How was I supposed to know that my friend Leslie would be recording it?

Next time: less German story, more on the asshole US INS one.

My third year at SxSW Interactive and again, my role has shifted. The first year, I was a Web Awards winner and SxSWi virgin. Last year, we attended as press. This year, I was both moderator (How to Make the Most of Maps) and panelist (Blogging for Money by Learning from Comics) the combination of which easily took up most of my attention in the first couple of days.

In addition, I also signed up for the open mic for Fray Cafe for the first time. I talked about a number of experiences I’ve had with immigration officials (primarily American ones) – all of which have been blogged here before.

Each of these were new experiences and I think they all went over reasonably well. I can breathe a sigh of relief for another couple of days until my next presentation.

Coming up: Pictures, videos(!) of Fray and more detailed thoughts on the panels .