!! syadiloH yppaH

Hmmm. What a weird session. That’s what I’d call it if you ask me.

It all began at the bar, where we all met for food & drinks. I have a picture to prove it, right below this text. Check us out! We’re all happy campers, must be the thrill to begin another TM session.

So we began by adjourning the event. That was after having Nacho Tellez, our General Evaluator, comment on the whole thing up until then. It is strange because to me his evaluation was really detailed and structured, yet, we didn’t really seem to have done much up until that point? Interesting.

I recall having an outstanding Table Topics session after that conducted by Table Topics Mistress Jelena Vetockina, where some psychoanalysts visited us and offered counsel. The board was integrated by Dr. Doriana Bagnoli (eminence in cigarette-stealing behavior), Dr. Catalina (specializing in motivating people with funny Manga names such as Kikuro) and Dr. Rayanne Bachammar, who has a PhD. in helping bulky, Schwarzenegger-like guys (I had to Google that surname to spell it right, dang it) to overcome their fear of small children.

We moved on into the evaluation portion of our session, with Judit Permanyer, Ana Villar and Marion Chevalier delivering in style as usual. Evaluations packed with ideas for improvement are great; having them delivered by those three and their savoir-faire? Icing on the cake.

On came the third speech of the evening: a breathtaking revisit of one of Andrea Buron’s most tough and changing moments in life. She took us on a six floor elevator ride of tension, fear, questions and eye contact with a person close to her final moments which deeply impacted her, and pointed out the way in which Toastmasters can be of help to come to terms with those traumatic experiences and put them into proper context.

Close your eyes now. Hold on, open them again so you can read the instructions. All right, close your eyes and use three seconds to think of a drug. Do it now. I don’t know what you thought about (better keep that to yourself?), but I’ll tell you what you didn’t think: Cars. Speaker Mariyana Tasheva went for an eye-opener on how the U.S. is heavily dependent on them and private transportation in general, and pointed at global warming as one of the undesired consequences of that. She proposed expanding public transportation and using one of the older means of transportation known to mankind: the body.

Somehow, some ice had built up at this point; someone had to break it. Marc Majoral was the brave soul to present himself to the club through three major moments of change in his life: travelling and living abroad; coming back and obtaining a job in the career he always wanted to pursue; and his change towards a healthier lifestyle when he began running. You have to love Ice Breakers, especially when we get to know someone so well and see their will to move forward in the TM experience. Way to go and an Ice Breaker ribbon to you, Marc!

With the speeches concluded we moved onto the technical team presentation: Cristian Couso as the Ah-Counter, Oleksandr Raspopov as the evening’s Grammarian and Lukasz Zagroba in the role of Timekeeper. They then gave the word to Sandra Almeida, our skillful Toastmaster for the session, who proposed the topic of Summer as our last theme in July. Okay … so now I see why the Word of the Day was ‘Dive’. All right, this is starting to make sense…

Then Sandra greeted Judit Permanyer on the role of acting president who welcomed the guests to the session. (Note to self: I should propose the committee changing this part of the agenda and actually wishing farewell at this point, looks like it’s a bit too late in the session to welcome anybody?)

On a final word, I want to thank you all for the great idea of walking backwards all the time for the whole evening. I found that to be original and hey, I went with the flow. After all, we do a lot of clapping and other peculiar stuff so it was appropiate for a club like ours.

…hold on…. unless... Hmmm. I think I might have messed somewhere people. erehw erus yllaer toN.

Definitely, I need a holiday.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS TOASTMASTERS, SEE YOU ALL BACK SAFELY ON THE 4^TH OF SEPTEMBER!!

Isaac Riera