Today was my big presentation. I was nervous, especially in a conference in a foreign country. The person translating for me is the Chief Technical Officer of my hosting company, and we had rehearsed for about 1.5 hours Tuesday night.
   We shared the podium and were able to work as a team using body language. We decided that I should speak a single sentence and have him translate it before I spoke again, so that we weren’t both speaking at the same time. This required that I write out all my thoughts on paper and send to him in advance. It took him two days to translate it, which is a lot of work. This also meant that I could not speak off the cuff as is my usual style. On the one hand, it helped to have detailed notes, but on the other hand, I could not make good eye contact with my audience because I had to keep track of where I was in my speech; otherwise, I would lose my place and my translator.
   The speech went off with little trouble.  We were smooth and professional, and my hosts were happy with the content, and I think they got the visionary stuff they were looking for. We ended exactly on time, 45 minutes, which is a long time to be standing at a podium. Afterwards, I had some discussion with a few folks who understood the technical content and asked some good questions. I even met a person who spent six months at Ford with a close collegue of mine on an exchange program. So after the adrenaline rush and lunch, I am getting tired. I’ve been going nonstop since I arrived, so I think I will stay in my room and crawl into my shell(a saying I borrowed from Cyndi) and get some rest before dinner and reception tonight.