a few days ago, i gave a speech to this group of kids at the U. in chinese. it was actually quite horrendous, my chinese that is....as for the experience, well, they say the only way to deal with the fear of public speaking is by simply having to do it????? well......i did it! luckily, i hope, no one understood mandarin. these are a group of entering students in the undergrad program for business & economics. the dean, who is this amazing guy, wanted some foreign "professionals" to give a speech in their respective languages (my god, i am more comfortable in spanish than mandarin - i don't even know what i was saying while i was saying it, let alone, know if my tones were correct.)

luckily, mom and dad translated this thing into mandarin, then on skype, read it to me, as i am illiterate in chinese, then i wrote it for myself in a sad hodge-podge of pin-yin, wade-giles, and yale roman systems - a conglomeration of all the ways i have studied mandarin, then read it three times to my parents on skype, which i am just getting used to (we sound like we are in tin tunnels - but free & easy!) my mom goes, Oh! it is soooooo good! anyway!, so i go to bed, then wake up the next morning hoping to cancel on this man.....

well, he was very happy with it, and i think it was good. gracias a dios, i had the use of a podium.....unlike the other people who walked around with a mike. i think they were trying to hide me, since i was without a jacket & tie and i had my shirt untucked.....as usual......(they were all dolled up for the standard school orientation.)

anyway, the whole point was to just expose them to the fact that there is a world outside of ecuador and the spanish speaking world. i have no idea what the kids were thinking, since i was messing up the tones, probably making run-on sentences, and my new 80s eyeglasses were all fogged up!

i think there was one asian kid in the group, giving me this look of disdain.....but probably just paranoia on my part.....

the good thing is we are going to get the business school students to come in later in the semester and work with my design students to figure out some marketing strategies, as well as working with the manufacturers....etc.......it's nice to do this academic stuff, and since we are really doing this furniture project for export (at the same university), to do something with practical applications.....also!???? (why i am talking like this all of a sudden?????