"Giving a speech" or "45 minutes of fame :)"

So the other evening I was invited to a local college to give a speech to the English club about "How to Learn English." I wasn't really sure what to expect, so I thought I better prepare a little something to say. I arrived about 35 minutes early, and I was escorted up many flights of stairs, in the dark with no lighting, to a large but old classroom that was in desperate want of paint and repairs. Students started filing in and immediately had a look of shock on their faces when they entered and were greeted by a foreigner. I talked to one girl sitting near me for a few minutes, but the conversation waned quickly as her range of topics was fairly limited in English. I decided to do a little "meet and greet" with the time I had left before the speech. I slowly made my way around the room and shook hands and greeted every student there. By this time there were about 60 or more students in the room. They were so nervous. I could see some of them squirming in their seats as I approached them to say hi. I knew they were practicing over and over in their heads, "Nice to meet you too. Welcome to our school." They were all giggles and nerves. It was very fun. By now the room was completely full with, I guess, 100 or more students.

At this point, I knew that the information I had prepared to give them in my talk was going to be too much language for them to grasp. I watered it down and made it very interactive to try and keep their attention. I said a few lines in my very simple Chinese, at which they gave me a great applause for my efforts. I talked for about 45 min. and then let them ask questions. They asked me everything from "Do you like China" to "How can the American Economic Crisis be solved." To that my answer was something like, "If I could answer that, they would elect ME president." After that there were photos galore and then I was wisked away carrying a huge boquet of flowers as a gift from the English Club.

If you can't tell, I love doing that kind of stuff.