Public Speaking

Today I teamed up with my friend in the Political section who will be switching jobs with me this November to give a presentation to an American Studies class from Niels Brock College.  Spencer started it off with a 15-minute presentation in fluent Danish about the history of US/Denmark relations, after which I briefly talked about visas, and then we spent the rest of the hour in Q&A.  They asked a lot of questions about our lives and experiences as diplomats, both in terms of how we viewed living in Denmark and what was different between Denmark and the US, and also about things like how our assignments are determined and why we got into this career.

I was glad that most of the show was driven by audience questions, because I had about twenty minutes to prepare for my part of it.  I had signed up a couple of months ago, but the schedule had changed from the original date and the last update I'd received was that they would let me know when a new date was determined.  I had planned not to start working on a presentation until I knew when it would happen, and then this morning someone from Public Affairs came by while I was interviewing to confirm that I was ready for the presentation at 14:00.  Apparently they had rescheduled and forgot to tell me, but I am flexible.  I had actually planned to meet a visiting executive from Scandinavian Airlines at, you guessed it, 14:00, to show him how our visa application process works on the inside and answer questions they have about the new online application form.  But luckily, one of the Danish employees in the NIV section took over that (and did a better job of it than I would have done), leaving me to make just a brief appearance to shake the guy's hand and forget his name while Spencer flew solo for a couple of questions at our presentation.

At the end, the students gave us each a box of Danish chocolates, which is always welcome.