The Nostalgia Channel

[howeird]

Last night I was given the chance to wax nostalgic in public for the first time in ages. The Peace Corps recruiting office in SF asked me and another Thailand "returned volunteer" (RPCV) as we are affectionately called, to give an informal presentation at Lucie Stern center in Palo Alto. I brought some of my favorite people slides, and after a brief intro by the recruiter, I showed about 30 of them, telling a little about the people in the photos and using that as a launching pad to giving some more info about Thailand and Peace Corps service. The reception was not the "ooh, aah" I got the time I showed them to the local RPCV group, but at least they didn't start to lose interest before my time was up. It was close, though.

After my slide show, Colin, the other RPCV, talked about the Peace Corps training and experience in more depth. We only had half a dozen attendees, so he stayed in his chair and just had people gather round. Not bad for a lawyer. Very interesting point - Colin had much more thorough language training, including a 3-month home stay and assignment to a tiny village in the middle of nowhere, and he was there 10 years later than me, but he's lost all his reading and most of his speaking skills.

Maybe I'm living in the past too much. Probably am.

Comments

[farmount.livejournal.com]

OK, who's the guy in your icon picture? You from long ago?

[howeird]

Give that girl a kewpie doll! That was me at Hua Hin Beach where we had our 1-year language refresher course, the final day of class, I think. IMHO that's the best I ever looked.

Say, did you get my email? I know the excrement impacted the ventillation device at about the same time I sent it, so no worries if you didn't get around to it.

[farmount.livejournal.com]

Um, re: dinner? Yes, but everything then hit the rotating blades. Next week or something?

Go ahead and call me, although I won't be in until Monday.