It’s finally June. Ben and Paul flew home on June 3. Shelley and Sophy came to say goodbye, which was nice. I rode with them to the airport, then rode back home. They are now safely at home and getting ready to return to work and school.
The apartment here is now quiet and clean except for the ever-present mosquitos. I feel there are holes around the windows. How do they get in? I have a Raid plug-in emitting smelly toxic fumes to kill them. I guess I am glad it stinks so I unplug it as often as I dare.
I taught class today. Took me 5 hours yesterday to prepare what I hoped would be two class periods. It worked! Today we learned how to put a “frame” around a generic speech about SJTU’s achievements — a frequent speech/ power point here. We practiced engaging different audiences, then starting with a story to gain interest, then planting some resistance in the speech (to make the audience more receptive to the claims of SJTU’s status) then ending by connecting again to the audience, since the speech does not. At the end we all wrote an engaging start for an imaginary conference of librarians hosted by SJTU. Everyone wrote very good stuff. Class is on Thursday again, and I prepared a powerpoint (ppt) explaining Amy Cuddy’s work on non-verbal body language and communication. We will all practice with that ppt, then practice taking questions to which we do not know the answers, then practice powerful non-verbal posturing. Fun! See her Ted Talk from 2012.
I will pick up Melissa at the airport at 7:15 pm. I am ridiculously happy that she could come visit me as part of her birthday present to herself!