The visit to Turku this past Saturday (Jan 20th) was fantastic. The Diversity-In-Action presenation went very well and was well received. For those that may not know, Barbara and I do a presentation geared around African-American contributions, called Diversity-In-Action, in the areas of Scientists & Inventors, Poetry, and Music. It its a few higlights and presenst some not very well known inventors. We feature two poets: Langston Hughes and Paul Laurence Dunbar. We also discuss music from spirituals, gospel, contemporary, blues, & jazz. We provide demonstartions of the poetry in standard english and dialect, and the music. The audience gets to participate in the poetry and the music portions. This year, since I have been in Finland, there have been soem revisions and additions. I have added a powerpoint to the presentation. In my own very biased. but reflective opinion, it's great, but has the potential to be earth shattering. I also include two new poems (one from eack poet) and replaced one other. Since my move into the blues, I added "The Weary Blues" by Hughes and actually sing the appropriate portions. I aslo provided a handout from an internet resource on the poem as well.
At this seminar, in addition to the forty-five minute presentation, I had the opportunity to sing an additonal 15 minutes worth of music. I could have filled up 2 hours easy and no one would have been bored. As it was, the time passed by very quickly.
The seminar was presented to the organization of Finnish teachers of English classes. I saw a copy of their annual publication "Yours Truly" and I'VE BEEN PUBLISHED!! That's right, I had an article published regarding my experiences in Finland (specifically Pyhäjoki), thus far. WoW! to see your work in print and it actually reads well. I'm delighted. A literary "not quite genius yet" in the making.
All in all, it was a pretty fantastic weekend. Of course I was wiped out from the trip home.
Well, hei, hei for now - until next time...
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