Thursday, 17th November

This day turned out to be rather hectic. I woke up at 9am to an alarm saying I had 2 assignments due for my change management class. Thankfully I did set the reminder as I had completely forgotten about the tasks.

I had a banana for breakfast and headed to my public speaking class at 9.30am. Angela the instructor was away at a conference so two members of the class run it instead. We had our final ‘quiz’ and then I gave a 8 min speech on UWA in an effort to persuade them to come visit on exchange. After we had some fun doing impromptu speeches. I drew a card asking – what is your favourite cartoon character. I said Wheres Wally. I talked about the large books mum bought me and the tv show I used to watch. I thought I did really well. The next class would be
an assessed impromptu.

I rode back to the dorms and started on the assignments. I chose to use GoPro to do a business brief for the change unit, and then I had to write a few pages for the Bike Coop assignment on our data collection techniques.

I had class at 12.30pm for strategic management and continued to work on both assignments thought-out the lesson. After the class I walked outside and looked up. It was a clear blue sky and a pane had done a nice turn and left a jet trail that formed an arc. I had to take a photo… I raced back to the dorm then came back and took photos. I end up riding around this side of campus taking photos of the trees and buildings. The colour of the leaves were super. I wanted to plant some of these trees back home.

I skipped my 3.30pm engineering class to finish off the assignments and then headed off to the gym at 4.45pm. I had a quick biceps and back session with Lucas and felt sore and stretched after. It’s a good feeling.

I ate quickly at Lapo and then printed out my assignments then headed off to the Change class at 7pm.

When I walked in Chris excitedly told me the ski gear had arrive – I opted to wait until after the lecture to get the gear. I was excited. This whole class was dedicated to presenting the business briefs. I brought my GoPro’s along as a prop. The speech went down well. I spoke using the report and highlighted the important parts. Its interesting though; I still didn’t cover everything I wanted to say. I believe the only way to improve my skills is to speak in front of a crowd and learn from every experience. Also, I plan to join Toastmasters when I return to Perth. The past 2 weeks I’ve made a number of speeches and each time I get more confident and excited. It reminded me of being back in school with the weekly debates or public speaking on Thursdays after chapel.

Later the night I unpacked my ski gear while I Skyped Harry and filmed it on the GoPro. It was nice talking to Harry – he was eating Barbies fruit chutney and the whole meal bread mum buys from Barrets. I was jealous… but then I looked at my ski pants and forgot all about it!!!
I caught up with Hannah before falling asleep. It was a long day and I achieved a lot. When there is a little amount of stress I am able to get work done. When I am relaxed I find it difficult to get done.