My Presentation to the Granada Rotary Club

My apologies for the lack of posting as of late… I haven’t done anything particularly interesting so I haven’t really felt compelled to post. And after that whirlwind week with mom here I was quite exhausted of the typing and sick of my computer, in all honesty. Well, the moment that all you Rotarians have been waiting for has arrived. Well, maybe it’s not the moment you have all been waiting for, but its something I’m sure you have been curious about. Last night I gave my presentation to the Granada Rotary Club. The presentation consisted of about 25 slides about Oak Ridge, OR Rotary and my family. I wish I could say that it was in intelligible Spanish, but the moment I stepped to the front of the room in front of all 10 people that were in attendance every word of Spanish that I have learned in these past few months simply vanished from my memory and replaced itself with some weird mix of French and English. Ha! I resorted to reading the slides after a bit and then tried to go back to ‘make it up as you go’ Spanish, but it was about as unsuccessful as the time before. Luckily the slides were correct [thanks to my teacher!] and made sense. They also talked to me after the meeting when my nerves has subsided and realized that I can actually speak Spanish, contrary to what my presentation would have one believe!

They were very very interested in Oak Ridge and its bizarre history. I did a bit of research myself, thanks Wikipedia, before putting it all together and found out some interesting facts myself. For example, I didn’t know that some crazy mystic named John Hendrix had ‘visions’ of Oak Ridge some time in the early 1900’s about 42 years before OR actually came into existence. Cool.

I also thought it would be entertaining to make the presentation interactive, i.e. ask questions and see who knew the answers. I figure if I have to embarrass myself because I don’t speak Spanish then they can embarrass themselves for not knowing everything about American geography, right? I opened the presentation with an easy enough question, a color-coded map of the US with each region labeled; northwest, southwest, southeast, and northeast. To their credit they guessed SOUTH, but when that was not a choice, quickly recovered and said ‘southeast’. The next question was significantly harder. A map of the 7 or so states that make up the “southeast” and they had to identify Tennessee. First guess? Georgia. Then Kentucky then Florida then North Carolina, South Carolina and Alabama. Then Mississippi. Then they gave up. No prize given out that round.

For those of you that are laughing, there will be a quiz later about Spain, so don’t go getting all cocky because you know where Tennessee is! Mom, your quiz will just be to show me Spain on a map of the Worl- … Europe. But I jest. Mom did a great job navigating all of Andalucía.

They also really seemed to enjoy all the goodies : city of Oak Ridge pins as well as the four way test coins. They all put the pins on and admired the coins, even though they were in English. Actually, quite a few members speak English, which i didnt find out until later. They were holding out on us!!! the Four Way Test in Spanish is La Preuba Cuadruple. Just in case you needed to know!

I had Felicity, a 6 month scholar from California play photographer for my presentation. but the internet connection at the house is too slow to upload anything. i'll try again later. At the end of the meeting I did a banner exchange with not only the Granada Club, but also a Rotarian who is visiting from her newly founded club in Fermoy, Ireland [that’s on the quiz now too!]. They were founded this past summer, and unlike the Granada Club, they have more women than men! I’m not sure if that’s allowed but since she has come to the past two meetings and was really excited about exchanging banners I figured it would have been rude not to. It’s quite interesting to see how different the banners are from each country. The ones from Ferwoy and Canterbury are quite similar, and my banner looked a lot like Rebecca’s banner from California. The Granada one doesn’t look like any of them… maybe it’s a Spanish thing!

But, for those of you that don’t know, I only have 2 weeks left here in Spain. As of Dec 3 I will be traveling to London and that Friday [7] I plan on visiting Ines, a friend of mine from my semester in Grenoble at her home in Vienna. I’m going to look into speaking at a Club in Vienna, but seeing as my German consists of Halo, sheisse, bitte and danke, I don’t think I will get very far… I’m banking on the fact that someone, or most of them speak English. To save money, I will be flying to Bratislava. Mom, Jill, Bratislava is where the film “Hostal” supposedly took place, not Croatia. And for you people out there that simply accumulate random facts Bratislava and Vienna are only about an hour away in car [I’m not sure about the exact mileage], making them the closest capitals in the world. See, you learn something every day, even you Nick, even you.

Well it’s getting late and I have 5 hours of class tomorrow, and the next day and the next day. You see what I did there? I HAVE CLASS ON THANKSGIVING. No Kathryn, I don’t get Thanksgiving Break. Nor did I benefit from Labor Day. I’m thinking I might have to take my own Thanksgiving break since I am not allotted one by the school…