Back to work

Yesterday, I went to a local library to speak to a group of “youth.” I’d volunteered in January for a random weekend in March and it finally came due.

In Morocco, “youth” meant people up to age 40, assuming they weren’t married, so based on that, I was expecting a slightly older crew, and, seeing as how the topic was “Culture of America” (however I wanted to interpret that), I figured there’d be some knowledge of English.

Upon officially being tasked with the gig, my age range shot and narrowed down to “elementary school age” – 6 to 12 or so. But as it turned out, they meant kids primarily 4-9 or so, with one outlier who could not have been older than 2. Oh, and their parents.

It was so bizarre and I’ve no idea if it went over well for them, but I had a blast. After chatting with a few people for ideas, I settled on an animal presentation, highlighting critters found in America. (Some were in Canada and South America, too, and some similar species were found in other parts of the world, but all that I chose were biggies in the U.S.)

I did another PowerPoint – I love that stuff – and had three slides for each of 15 animals: one for photos, one for three facts and one that had a map where they lived in America as well as a “fun fact.”

I split them into three groups of five and had games planned to review the species: charades, a quiz game and the thing where you put the name on your head and then try to guess based on yes or no questions you ask your team. Well, that’s not going to happen with a 4-year-old. That part turned out to be a debacle so I wound up just shouting out questions and letting the kids scream out the answers.

I got A LOT of questions, which as cool but I am no expert in all the critters I talked about. Um...do brown recluse spiders have webs? I said no. And I said that prairie dogs eat meat, which, upon retrospect, is probably really wrong. I figured they'd never remember anyway. But they do know what to do in case they run into a rattlesnake - stand completely still until it goes away. (I remember this from a sign in a national park in Arizona. What it said was something like, "If you are lucky enough to see a rattlesnake, step back and enjoy." Yeah, right.)

They also wanted to know about the eating habits of wolves, like what the alpha male ate. Well, I read a book on that and it's fascinating. Each wolf in the pack has a different role and, when the pack makes a kill, each wolf eats a certain part of the kill and what they eat pertains to what they need for their role in the pack. It's really deep, and these kids were little! HOW do you explain that?

They got into the “what do they eat?” thing and I had no idea. But unofficially, skunks eat animals smaller than them and possums eat plants. What kind of plant, they wanted to know. The kind with leaves, I stressed. Tell me I can’t think on my feet.

It really was a lot of fun and I would do it again. Apparently, this library – which is solely a kids’ library, kind of cool – is trying to establish this program with a lot of the consulates and I got to be the first. I feel I set the bar high. The kids had a really good time, and so did I. I mean, I went WAY overboard in my presentation, but they liked the pictures. I’d to the same presentation – Animal Olympics and all – to a slightly older audience with no qualms whatsoever.

And now it’s Sunday and I’ve been back into work to supervise a contractor job and to try and fight our Sharepoint site, which is a weird Microsoft program that’s kind of an online filing system. I really don’t like it because it’s hard to make useful. Anyway, I went in thinking I’d have four hours to catch up while I did that and then the contractors arrived late and took an early lunch and I really didn’t have that much time.

Now what I have to do is get a grip on my annual evaluation, which is just a nightmare. No one likes to do these thing and they’re just a pain in the butt. But my department has 40 due between now and June 1 and since I get to project manage them all through, it’s in my best interest to get mine underway and out of the way as soon as possible or I run out of time dealing with it. 

Throwing in some more Melbourne photos. I just loved the beach. I’m not sure if I am a beach or mountain person. There’s got to be some place that has them both. That’s where I want to go.

The little hole in the dirt was a penguin next. He or she was home at the time, but wouldn’t pose for a photo. That was the only opportunity I had to photograph one because we couldn’t once it got dark.

The birds were unreal to see in the wild. They were just in this random park in Melbourne, seriously. I heard this “cawing” and looked up and saw these lovebirds. It was hard to shoot them – I really need a better camera. Later, in Sydney, I saw some cockatoos just hanging out.

I don’t know what happened to the starfish, but he must have been really slow, because he was completely dried out. I think I saw three on the rocks where this was.

The model thing was in the art gallery. I forget what it was called, but it was something about a reflection. It’s a hanging installation of a model of a temple. The model is built in 14 pieces. It’s essentially seven different buildings, then the complete reflection of those buildings. It really was pretty phenomenal.

Did I mention the music was fabulous? It was like being thrown back into the 1980s. I really heard "Stuck With You" and "Jessie's Girl" on the radio (and visited Springfield Park in Sydney, although that might have been a coincidence).

 Oh, and I tasted Vegemite. It was vile.