Who would have thunk it! I had to give two parent presentations on curriculum and I decided to take pictures of classes in the school and talk about curriculum through actual events in the school.The picture part was easy.I went to visit various classes, developed themes in my mind that I wanted to talk about and uploaded to picassa. That was the easy part.
I assumed I could download all of them to powerpoint at once and do some cutting and pasting or something. Not so. I discovered, to my chagrin, you have to download one picture at a time which is a real pain, especially for someone like me who has no patience.
I asked a computer teacher to help during the day and he kindly did so. In fact, at the end of the day he asked how I did and when he saw I was stuck in the mud he took it home, worked on it, put labels on all the pictures and rearranged them and virtually did my presentation for me. All I had to do was speak!
Believe me, that also was not as easy as it looked. Last night, we had a "white board" where all I had to do was the tap the screen with my wand and it went to the next picture. Great you say, exept that the white board had to be calibrated and the choir was singing first and we had to move the screen out of the way so the parents could see the choir. When my name was called I had to tap dance for a while until the screen was calibrated and ready to go.Good experience, standing before a 100 parents with nothing to say until the slide show was ready. Don't exactly remember what I said but it must have worked.
I know I did a great job, considering most of the parents spoke little English so they really appreciated the pictures. Afterwards, a woman came up to me and asked me if she could take my picture. Wow, I didn't realize I was that powerful a speaker! Unfortunately, she spoiled it by telling me she loved the tie and wanted a picture of it.( my 50th birthday present)
After my experience last night, which I celebrated with a hamburger, fries and coke, I was set to rock and roll today for my "show" at the other campus. I was so confident I even left things for the same day and spent the morning taking pictures. I thoughtI would spend about an hour arranging the pictures, resizing them, putting on labels and putting them in an order but guess what- nothing is ever as easy as it looks. The presentation was at 4 and I just finished with moments to spare, and I mean moments.
What did I learn? That I can actually figure things out ( more or less) without Daniel. I also learned that pictures are extreme entertaining for an audience and makes everyone feel good, especially when they see their own son or daughter in the pictures. I tried to mention every teachers' name and highlight the key curriculum thrusts at the school. I know I did well, pleased the boss, ticked off a few teachers who did not get a mention and celebrated with golf and dinner at the driving range.
This was no ordinary driving range. As usual, you could order dinner and drinks as you were practicing, but what was different was the size. There were about 15 stores in the driving range all specializing in some aspect of golf, be it clothes, clubs, etc. It really was quite amazing and I shall return.
My next challenge, other than hitting a golf ball properly, is to make sure a large conference I am running on Friday actually works. It the past, I have had lieutenants do the grunt work like ordering materials, projectors, making name tags, arranging furniture, taking care of all the details. This time, I will do it all tomorrow and hopefully no teacher will ask me for any help so I will have time to work. With luck, I will get everything arranged and be ready to rock and roll for Friday.
This week-end, the owner of the school is taking us to Pattaya which, I am sure, will prove interesting. Stay tuned for the next episode.
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