Australia Travel Log: Day Two

Well, this entry is mostly for the sake of continuity since I haven't officially started  my "holiday" here yet (the word "vacation" elicited some giggles last night). I gave a three hour workshop presentation yesterday. That "oh-my-gawd-I-am speaking-in-front-of-a-room-with-a-microphone-and-video-camera" kicked in right after I got started. But the session was fun and we filled the full three hours.

So despite Australians being so friendly, I learned a little bit about the culture during the presentation. When I present in the US, it's not problem to fill in time with Q&A and collaborative exercises. What I Iearned is that Australians aren't as accustomed to the raising their hand and sharing thing. It gave me a bit of a laugh but the attendees were good sports and participated. I keep hearing that Australians love Americans, but I imagine we seem a bit over-bearing to them. Anyway, I felt good about the presentation and  I hope the participants got out of it what they wanted.

There was a networking reception afterward. You might be surprised to hear that I am not very good at these mixer activities. I never feel super comfortable just walking up to someone and starting a conversation when you know you are there to "network". Put me in a bar and I'm fine. I'm not sure what the difference is; the fact that you are supposed to have conversations on consequence? I don't know. Anyway, all the people I met were absolutely lovely and so easy to talk to and I'd bring them all home with me if I could.

So now it's technically the wee hours of day 3. I'm still in my routine of sleeping only a few hours at a time. I'd call it jet lag but it feels like being at home. Except here I wake up hungry in the middle of the night because I didn't eat dinner and I am wreaking havoc on the mini bar (that stops tomorrow...a KitKat is not a meal!). Day three is for attending the conference and then heading out to the Microsoft office in North Ryde (whatever that means) and then back here for a speakers dinner.

So I am looking forward to finishing up my speaking responsibilities so I can truly start enjoying myself 100%. I imagine that if you are going to cut loose, this is a perfectly good place to do it. And I have no doubt that I have some serious cutting loose coming my way. And I'm sure I deserve it.