Three Years Later, Finally Presenting at Common Hour

Alright, so for my faithful readers from the beginning, do you remember my post in December of 2010 (I know, a while ago!) about going with Heidi to our first Common Hour? (You can click on that link to read that particular blog post).

For those who didn't remember, Common Hour is a weekly event at Coe on Friday afternoons where students, faculty, and staff get together to discuss a chosen topic of the week. When Heidi and I went, we discussed academic rigor. I really enjoyed Common Hour, but for the past couple of years, my clarinet seminar has always met smack dab in the middle of it.

But not this semester. And good thing too because I am not presenting at one, but TWO, yes two, Common Hours. That really shouldn't surprise anyone.

My first Common Hour presentation was on Friday (the 13th). It was a group presentation on the May Term I took to Germany and Poland. Not only did we get to present and share our experiences, we also got to have a mini reunion.

Brian and I made a slideshow for the presentation, so we hung out a few times earlier last week to put it together. While no Scrabble was played (our go-to game during the trip; probably a good thing we didn't play since I would lose despite me being an English major), it was good to see him and catch up a little bit.

Along with Brian and myself, our reunion included Professor Keenan, Ryan, Kallie, and Braydon. We pretty much put up the slideshow and talked about what we did and what we saw. Our slideshow presentation took about 45 minutes and then we had fifteen minutes for questions. The audience (which had grown since my first Common Hour three years ago) asked some really good questions.

I love that Coe has a forum for that sort of sharing and it was so nice to let the audience know that we not only enjoyed our trip, but also learned a lot about World War II, the Holocaust, and frankly, ourselves.

My second Common Hour will be Homecoming weekend. I'm talking about my study abroad experiences, mainly New York Term but also the Lake District and Germany and Poland will naturally be talked about as well.