Earthwatch: Mongolia

My Earthwatch presentation last night was fun. I surprise myself each time I do one: who would ever have guessed that I would enjoy public speaking? I was so painfully shy as a teenager. I guess old age does have some benefits to it…

Anyway, the Anchorage Prospector’s Society had invited me back to speak to them again, despite my having set off the alarm thereby causing the police to show up at the last presentation I gave them. This one went so much better, they’ve even asked me back yet again!

That will make three presentations for them: Earthwatch in General, Earthwatch: Mongolia, and Earthwatch: Costa Rica. I’m going to have to go on another expedition really soon so that I can have more to talk about!

Mongolia was the topic last night, and it was well-received by a crowd of well over 50 people. I wrote down an attendance of 60 on my timesheet – even without an exact headcount, I think I estimated that fairly closely.

Some of the people were brand new to the society, too – apparently they had read about it in the papers and came just to learn about Mongolia. Two of them just happened to by my friends Cheryl & Louis, too.

It went rather long, unfortunately. Lillian, the event coordinator for the society, cautioned me ahead of time that people might want to get home on time – but they actually kept me talking for so long, they practically had to kick us out of the building at 9:30. I didn’t get home till around 10:00 because they still kept asking questions out in the parking lot.

Cheryl said one of the guys was angling for my phone number, but I totally didn’t pick up on that. I honestly thought he was just interested in my expedition. He got my email address from me, so we’ll see if anything comes of it. I just hope he’s a little younger than the average age of most of those people (most are around 75 years old)!