Work is starting to get a bit more hectic, as expected after the holiday doldrums.
I did my first teaching on Wednesday (two modules, all afternoon)and I think it
went relatively well. On the feedback sheets, one person said I "need to become
more familiar with the material" (fair enough -- a total of about 140 slides, 4
hours worth, and this was my first time teaching it), but quite a few used words
like "interesting", "smart", and "good presentation". A few people claimed the
particular tools won't be of any use to them. Some of those are right, though I
tend to think a little imagination can adapt this particular tool to be very
useful to most of our people.
The "smart" comment puzzled me a bit,
and it came from several different people. I mean, I am smart (and not especially
prone to false modesty), and it's among the first few words people who know me
would use in a description. I've got a verbal sort of focus, so it shows easily --
I'm not one of those people whom you have to know for a while and gradually
realize they're frighteningly intelligent. I don't reach the "frightening" level,
and such intellectual goods as I have are more or less in the shop window. But how
do these people know? I had never met any of them before Wednesday; they saw me
speak for about three and a half hours from prepared slides (that I didn't prepare
myself). I answered a few questions, but nothing too wild. So how do they know? Is
"bright girl" tattooed on my forehead, as someone once claimed "granola" was?
(That would be shortly before I began working in the defense industry, so I think
it was mainly clothing-related.) Maybe it's just an aura. Or maybe they couldn't
think what else to write on the feedback sheets.
In other news I may
be smart but I'm also tired -- back to the workout schedule and yes I did exercise
all five days this week. I'm not quite smart enough to figure out why my weights
as high as it's ever been. Yes, some of it's muscle .... but probably not all of
it.