the Big Boss had arranged the tables in a U, with a smaller table "just for us four panelists" at the "top" of the U. people came in and filled the seats around the outer edge and, once they were filled, began to stand along the walls instead of taking the seats along the inner edge of the U. "you can sit there!" the Big Boss helpfully told them, and pointed. everyone shuffled around and finally Nham (a diminutive and brilliant philosophy-PhD type who had, like 50-cent, been shot multiple times and, unlike 50-cent [unfortunately] been expelled from his home country because of his religion) ran in and began to grab the chairs the Big Boss had painstakingly arranged. he dragged the out of the U and began to push them against the wall for grateful librarians. "no, no!" she cried. Nham grinned and said, "it's ok! i got!" as she tried to stand up to stop him. finally she gave up and sat down, defeated, and looked over. "Alex?"
so i started, and i was a total train wreck, losing concentration and rambling and jumping all over the "strategic planning" map. i could see my kindly boss' face crumpling in disappointment as i bypassed huge sections of the notes he'd help me put together. finally i rushed an ending and passed it along to the next panelist. we were supposed to talk for five to ten minutes and i couldn't have spoken for more than two.
thankfully she sucked, although not as badly as i seemed to; the next person sucked a little less and made several anal sex references ("we need to attack the problem from behind", "bent over backwards"x3, "really need to give it to 'em"); the last guy knew his stuff and went over each fine point of the "Strategic Plan" for at least half an hour.
the floor was opened to questions and comments. my boss talked for a bit and shoehorned in some of the points i missed. a woman talked at length about something vague and pronounced "entrepreneur" as "intra-penner". the Big Boss smiled and closed the meeting.
everyone came up and said we all did great! and made compliments that were carefully true without awarding real credit, like "You stayed on topic the most out of all of them!" my boss said he was pleased and that "the nine minutes you talked was the perfect length" (!). the Big Boss said she was pleased. i got a bagel and fled.
so, i anticipate that my first few days in a highschool classroom are going to be horrendous and tense, but maybe with practise i'll get used to this kind of thing. gah.
