This morning I arose on four hours of sleep to give my presentation to all the officers. I had made some mental modifications, as pilots have somewhat different concerns then the mechs I'd talked to earlier; officers arn't up there turning wrenches, but they do have ultimate responsibility for the safety of the aircraft and people on it, and they poke around during preflight inspections.

My classes for the maintainers were in the hanger bay, and I could point out the features I was discussing on the aircraft around us. Today's talk was in the ready room. I had considered making a Powerpoint with pictures, but Marines get exposed to too much Powerpoint already. I was hoping I could describe the systems well enough that the pilots could visualize them.

My choice to skip Powerpoint was wise, as my presentation was preceded by one from the Intel Officer. He did have a computer presentation, and it was excellent. Every other slide was a joke, and it was only just over a dozen slides. It was as good a one as I would have liked to make, except that I didn't have the time to make it.

So I stood up in the front and did it with words alone. (My opener: "Gentlemen, I prepared a Powerpoint of my own for this brief. It has fifty-six slides, each with disolves, sound effects, and animations. Then I discovered it causes cancer in labratory rats.") I buzzed through the talk in about fifteen minutes, and concluded to a round of applause. Afterward, I was told by several of the officers that it was the best brief they'd ever received from an enlisted, which is high praise. It helps that I was just condensing down the lecture I'd given many times two days prior, so all the jokes had been focus-group tested.

This afternoon we made port, and liberty call sounded two hours ago. I'm still on the ship, because I'm feeling rather run-down. A couple of days of no sleep are bad for me. Plus, while I guess I'm a good public speaker by Corps standards, I've been stressed about it.

We're in Brisbane, Australia, which I'm told is the third-largest city on the continent. It's raining, and it's going to keep raining all week. That won't stop me from going out on town, but it means I may not get any photos out of it. We were going to "man the rails" (stand along the edge of the ship while we pulled in), but that got cancelled due to the inclement weather.

Posted by: Boviate at 06:05 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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