An eventful few days February 11, 2008
Posted by Niels in : Personal, Work , add a commentIt’s been a hectic few days. Spoke at Gonzaga Thursday, home on Friday just too late to miss Obama’s speech, but just early enough to grab a couple hours of sleep before running a Friday seminar and meeting a friend after. Saturday was spent caucusing, followed by speaking to the Seattle Lair (very clear now that my target audience is somewhere else, don’t know where yet) and a last minute mad dash to Value Village to find a costume for the House on the Hill’s first ever Eighties Extravaganza (photos coming). Sunday was more sedate, sleeping in before setting up the “cardio theater” for some bike time while watching Hard Candy (disturbing), accidentally being a douchebag to a friend (reparable, maybe, hopefully), then going to a bartending flair competition (awesome).
Lessons learned:
From Gonzaga: The speech went well, especially considering that it was the largest audience I’d done exercises with and a completely new demographic (including one girl who fainted). I wasn’t left with the all-over glowing feeling afterwards that I was hoping for, however. I think the difference is in my audience - my usual clients have made social improvement a huge priority in the life, and the gratitude I feel from them reflects it. Reaching out to a more general audience, I’m going to get a much more sedate “well, this is interesting, and could maybe be useful” attitude. Craig told me he had the same experience when he was speaking professionally, and it made it really hard for him to market himself. I can see that. If I attack a wider audience, most of my audiences will be just fine even if they never hear me speak. On the bright side, I get results, as two girls in the first session met and decided to be roommates, while two girls in the second session became new instant best friends. That was nice.
From the caucus: What a clusterfuck of democracy. It was a cool experience, and I’m glad I went, but I can see the caucus being much more effective when there are only 1000 people in the entire state. There was far less arguing than I was hoping for (one 1-minute speech for Clinton and one 1-minute speech for Obama? what a ripoff!), nearly zero undecided voters, and I got the impression not many people were much more informed than me. And I’m fairly uninformed. But it was a great experience overall, with hundreds of people lined up around the block, and I’m the first alternate delegate behind my roommates for the next caucus level.
From the party: Be polite to police officers. Apparently our neighbor has very sensitive hearing, the officer who came to check out our “noisy party” said she had to park her car, roll down the window, and then listen for a few minutes to hear the music. She was very understanding, we hope our landlord will be as well, and a good time was had by all.
Bartending flair: So sweet. Craig and I met the competition winner from two years ago and after throwing limes at him while he was competing (he asked for it. no really, he did), hung out with him for the play-by-play for the final top competitors. Apparently some of the guys are required to compete in flair competitions by the terms of their visa - the US has plenty of bartenders, they have to prove that their job is special…
Your thoughts?Gonzaga wrapup February 8, 2008
Posted by Niels in : Personal , add a commentAbout 15 people at the first talk, 30-40 at the second. Smaller than expected, but I enjoyed it because it was small enough to make people switch around and interact with different people. I did the first talk from the floor, the second from the stage.
There’s a lot of snow here. It’s beautiful.
Your thoughts?Hello Gonzaga February 7, 2008
Posted by Niels in : Work , 1 comment so farI’m speaking at Gonzaga University today. Two 2-hour sessions, up to 200 people per session. That’s big. I really, really, really want this to go well…
Your thoughts?On understanding February 6, 2008
Posted by Niels in : Personal , add a commentSomething clicked yesterday about the way I think. I’m really really bad at remembering facts, which has always puzzled me because I’ve done well academically. But I think that success comes from being really good at understanding the underlying broad concepts. Not sure yet how this is going to affect my life, but I’m writing it down before I forget it.
Your thoughts?One banana, two banana, three banana, four… February 5, 2008
Posted by Niels in : Personal , 3 commentsSince Craig began his caveman diet and I tagged along for the ride, we can’t seem to keep bananas in the house. Between smoothies, fried bananas, peanut butter banana toast, and general banana snacking, vast quantities are consumed every day. We figured the four bunches we bought last week would have lasted us, but they ran out days ago and we even ran through our frozen banana reserves.
And that’s why we brought 60 bananas back from the grocery store today. We’re hoping they last us through to next week.
Your thoughts?