Positive Feedback and Idealistic Exodus

So I guess now I have time to talk about what's been happening lately.

A few weeks ago, I did a prayer for the school over the P.A. system in the morning in Chinese. I prepared for it for a week with Ye laoshi, and it went great--the response was good. Martin's class thought I was a teacher (yays).

Then this morning, I did a prayer with Lawrence at the General Assembly. While fretting over how long my hair was, how I would say things, where on Earth Ms. Magallona was, et al...

It was freezing cold this morning. I felt happy.

I got there at seven with Lawrence and we practised here and there, til Lee Panopio and Gabriel Juanengo came and hung around. Then the lady for the powerpoint came, so I patted my pocket for my flashdrive... it was not there! I remembered how I had left it on the computer table at home. SHIT!!!

I ran to her and raised Cain, worrying and trying to think of a plan, and many times, as I turned around in the still-empty HS gym, I smelled this flowery scent that reminded me so intensely of America (Minnesota), coupled with the cold weather, that I was struck immobile and rendered speechless for several moments. And I turned around and around, Windstruck style, and I could feel the intensity of the cold, and finally, I collected my wits and ran back to Lawrence to ask if I could have my copy of the prayer... only to see my flashdrive on top of it. *phew* I copied the powerpoint, gave instructions to the lady, and then waited.

People filled in.

Ms. Magallona was missing in action (she later says that she was watching). We go through the National Anthem and Pledge to the Flag before Lawrence and I walk up stage and stand there like idiots for about a minute while the lady and the Able services sort out the projector problem for our powerpoint. Yeah, we crammed this last night. Ms. Magallona even called to check up on us, and eventually we finished. I called Lawrence up, and his mom answered the phone. (We spoke in Hokkien. Wicked!) (Okay, so it was like 10 words tops. STILL!!!) Back to the present, eventually, the powerpoint shone, and I walked up to the Mic and read out St. Martina's biography from my cheat-sheet. It was then that I realized that it was more of a graphic-novel-like description of her death rather than a biography. It was then that I also realized that my legs were shaking. Seriously, I couldn't move them. They were just shaking and shaking... but my entire upper body was working fine. I wasn't even nervous... strange... involuntary reaction?

Anyway, Ye laoshi told me later that I did well, and 我的緊張聽不出來. Yay! Well, we also attempted to write Traditional Chinese. Laoshi wasn't bad at it. But we had a riot learning 鬱, which is just 郁 in Simplified. Mwahahaha!

So Lawrence said the prayer (with markedly less nervousness than me), and we descended from the stage and returned to our classes.

What a day!

I've been doing lots of these for the school lately... Let's wait 'til the Chinese mass and Unplugged.

[Idealistic Exodus comes next time!]