Crikey Mate Have I Gotta a Story for You

After seeing these images yourself you could imagine what it was like for the poor 5th graders who were watching and listening as hard as they could because I was speaking English. Yeah, I swear one of them was about to have a panic attack.

There have been 3 places now where I have given a presentation. The first was for my Biology class, the second is for my Rotary Club, and the third was for a bunch of young primary school students.

The Biology class was interesting. Everything was ready, everything was working, and I felt confident about my presentation. I was going to make it both funny and informative.

So I started off solidly, with information about Australia's History and its megafauna.

I got the class prepared for the other animals with these monsters of creatures that used to dominate Australia 3 million years ago.

They laughed at me describing these monsters, which was a good sign that this presentation is working, and sometimes the ONLY SIGN! Like for most of the presentation, they just look at you with a straight face. Some of them don't even react when I make a joke.

Okay, I am a thespian, I like to perform, very much, and through my many years of performing, I have learnt to read a crowd, and base my next actions on the information I am reading from their facial expression, and body language.

I have tried this with Finnish people and it is like a million times harder than reading Australians. They just sit their quietly with a face of the literal stone. So I was activating 100% of my brain power to try and read their body language to gain that valuable information.

And I think I did pretty well.

During my presentation, I like to add personal stories to mostly every animal, especially spiders and snakes. My favourite story to tell is the time I was at Charlie's house and I went into the bathroom. I look up. From the corner, I big old huntsman about the size of my face was staring back at me. I walk out of the room. Walk to Charlie, and say

"There is a big old huntsman in your bathroom"

He responds with

"Oh Yeah, that is probably Larry."

"LARRY!"

Now, remember this is a wild huntsman that he has in his house...…...that he has NAMED!

Charlie then continues

"You probably haven't met Bill yet"

"BILL!"

"Yeah, he likes to hide underneath the toilet sit."

"WTF! BILL"

So let me tell, I didn't go to the toilet that day.

That is my favourite story to tell because it always gets a reaction from the finns.

I was going through a few more stories and such and I finally arrived at the Cane Toads.

The story goes like this

In Australia, we don't like Cane Toads. They are big and gross. So when they come out which is usually during the night time and after it has rained, my friends and I would go outside, grab a handy golf club, and then find ourselves a golf ball. We find one, line it up and then SWING.

Now I was demonstrating this swing in real life for the Biology class, and well, I was holding a wireless clicking remote that is in the shape of a cylinder, that is easy to grab. Well...……….

I swung my arms as if I was swinging a golf club, using the wireless clicky thing to image the golf club was gripping, and I didn't hold on to it tight enough. The wireless clicker went flying across the room. And then smashed against the ground. I freaked out a little bit, swiftly rushed over to the not damaged wireless clicker, it was fine. The battery and the cover of the battery had fallen off the remote clicker that was it.

Yeah, that made my Story so much more interesting.

Of course, my presentation wasn't just purely, dangerous animals in Australia, I had many cute animals as well. For example, the wombat, the bilby and the platypus

Finished my presentation just as the bell went, and I was very happy. I had done very well overall I think.

My Next presentation was for the rotary club that was hosting me in Finland, where I was to introduce myself. Okay to introduce myself, Australia, and my family would take hours. They gave me 15 minutes. Also, I couldn't get more time because Arto and I were going to a hockey game straight afterwards. Soooooooooo…… I just used all the 15 minutes very quickly, but overall it was great I thought I introduced them to my favourite things about Australia, described what Australia is about and introduced myself and my family.

My favourite part of my presentation is the quote I found by Bob Hawke

---

"Australia is a country where it’s acceptable to say, ‘G’day, mate’ to your boss; where swear words are tossed around the dinner table as liberally as the salt and pepper; and where we slag off our politicians and are just as quick to take the piss out of ourselves"

---

And then would say that Bob Hawke, the 23rd Prime Minister of Australia, was immortalised by the Guinness Book of Records in 1954 for sculling 2.5 pints of beer in 11 seconds.

The final place I gave a presentation was for a bunch of fifth graders. So I got invited by one of my choir members to come and introduce myself to a bunch of fifth graders.

I was pumped, I was excited I was ready to meet all these little kiddies.

The first that I noticed about the classroom was that it was massive like huge, it was three classrooms in one, and there were also three teachers. and there was like this big common area with coaches and lots of stuff. It was very much different from what primary school was like in Australia.

Another difference is that they have a DOG!

LIKE WHAT!

That is so cool. It is just chilling in the classroom like a legend.

Now the students actually don't believe I was a real person. They believed it was going to be one of the teachers dressed as an Australian Exchange student. Because the teachers have a tendency to dress up as different people, such as the day before I came, one of the teachers dressed up as Mrs Dufflebottom from 17th century England. So the teacher and I had a great plan of getting the kids to say AUSSIE AUSSIE AUSSIE, and from the storage room I was hiding in I would Say OI OI OI, and then jump out with Guns A Blazing, and the kids will be all like WOW There is a real AUSTRALIAN, and we all would be cheering and it would be a fantastic introduction.

Yeah well I did that and all and the children ended up doing nothing, they did nothing at all. Not one thing in response.

Like at least they could have whispered to their neighbour, but nothing.

SO I just started introducing myself, and who I am, but overall the damage was done. My hopes and dreams where on the ground, underneath a dingo that is underneath Uluru.

Then I just started my presentation, where I first said that if the kids wanted to ask any of the questions that they had prepared beforehand, in English, that would be awesome. But they didn't, which wasn't surprising.

In terms of how the presentation went, it went incredibly well actually. The kids loved, the teachers loved it as well. It was great. Though the fun actually didn't start until I went outside with the balls of energy and random knowledge.

We went outside for recess, and they were not shy at all, they were asking me if I played Fortnite, if I know what growtopia is, and all of these random questions that I have no idea mean. But it was fun, and then they have this big old mountain of Ice in their playground that they climb and I slipped, I was a little hurt, but I walked it off, LIKE A MAN.

Anyway, that was mainly how the day went after that, they kept asking me questions and I kept answering the teachers were trying to get them to do work, I was distracting them from doing work. It was a good day.

So yeah so far, my presentations have been a lot of fun. From presenting to young teenaged girls (The biology class is all girls) to elder gentlemen and ladies to 12-year-olds and younger, it has been almost a journey in itself. Having to try and find what would be best for the little ones compared to older people, it was truly a challenge but rewarding when I saw all the people enjoying my snapshots from Australia.

Personally, there have been points in my life where I have found public speaking scary, but not while I am on exchange, I shall not show any fear or hesitation in my actions. one quote from my one of best Friends is "Never Retreat and Never SURRENDER". If I want to do something that will be lots of fun I will reach for it like how this crocodile reaches for the hanging meat.

Anyway

Kiitos for Reading

Stay Awesome

Fletcher Kendall