Last week was a tiring week of 8 library sessions. Count that – eight. The busiest day was Friday – 1 in the morning and 2 in the afternoon. The highlight was a 40 min session with a lecture theatre of 350 first year students. We were suppose to come in after Dr Lim finished with the “housekeeping” stuff – you know, students will be randomly assigned into groups for their video project which should only be 9 min long, research must be substantiated with acknowledged sources, etc. So when we entered the lecture theatre, all we could see were an ocean of students filling every seat, every corner of the LT. My colleague who came with me muttered under her breath, “Wah, very scary…”.
Yes, it was. It wasn’t as if I have not done a library session with over 300 students before. But somehow having 350 pairs of eyes staring at you, expecting you to hold their attention for the next 40 min isn’t quite a librarian’s cup of delightful afternoon tea.
Tea it wasn’t. Delightful? Let’s just say as long as those 350 pairs of eyes were fixed on me for those 40 min, it’s ok. It doesn’t matter if they were mentally willing the librarian to end quickly so they can get out of there already (it was after all TGIF) or whether they were straining to catch every titillating pearl of wisdom driveling out of the librarian’s mouth (it was after all the LIBRARIAN). As long as they were staring at me.
What really throws me off are students talking. It is extremely distracting. It is worse than having students fall asleep on you. Many a time I find the flow of my presentation momentarily but abruptly disrupted by giggly groups of girls or guys getting girls all giggly. Usually the disruption isn’t noticeable but it does affect my thoughts and what I want to say next. That’s when I pause, look down at my screen – just a moment of 3 seconds – then, I look up again at the audience. Nope, the giggly group will still be there giggling. But those 3 seconds are all I need to refocus back on what I have to do for the rest of the session. Well, I guess those 3 seconds will have to do until I perfect my pulverizing power. Oh yes, pulverizzzzze… <evil laughter> …I’m getting there, I’m getting there…..