Phew. The last week and a half has been quite a ride. It's two weeks before the school holidays and all the schools going on tour with us have asked for tour briefings during the part one and a half weeks. In the last week alone, I've had to conduct 5 briefings in 5 days. That has been quite a challenge. Briefings entail preparing briefing notes, briefing kits, and also the powerpoint for the actual presentation. Being the perfectionist that I am, this has meant working right up to the last minute, trying to perfect the presentation. It has been very very challenging and given that I am quite a slacker... heh.. (especially since I stopped working full-time), it has required tremendous willpower to temporarily restrain myself from my usual worldly pursuits! Yep.. NO MOVIES in the last 10 days! Yep... that's TEN days without visiting the celluloid chambers! Believe me, that took alot of effort on my part. heh.
Anyway, I've been really lucky to have some part-time help in office to prepare the stuff for my briefings. Having gone through the past 7 briefings (it was 5 in 5 days and 7 in 10 days), I am quite proud to say that I think I've done reasonably well. I wanted to do more than the usual boring tour briefing and I think I've improved on my presentation through the last 7 briefings. It's quite satisfying to know that I have managed to do some different things and that I have received pretty good feedback from the teachers. The other thing that has been exciting for me is the opportunity to address students during the briefings. It's been almost 20 months since I left teaching and I really do miss interacting with students in a classroom-like environment. I think conducting briefings has been as close as I could get for now to a classroom environment. Yeah, I do wonder if I should return to teaching again. Perhaps if the time and opportunity is right...
Well, one more week and I'll be off to Fukuoka for almost 2 weeks. The week ahead is gonna be real busy as I finalize the details of the tours I have been organizing for some schools. Then it's off to Kyushu with my first of three tour groups. I'm trying to think how to make my tours different from the normal tours. Gonna definitely try to think out of the box as I plan to lead the three tours.
The next three weeks should be challenging... and very tiring! Sigh, less slacking for me...
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