Nepal Speakers Forum

This afternoon was the lecture on confined masonry that I discussed in an earlier post. It went longer than I thought (52 minutes compared to the 45 minutes that I thought it would take), but despite that it appeared to go over well. There were about 60 people in the room and there were no walkouts. I could see a few people who were starting to get bored towards the end but I also saw a few people who looked like they were engaged. At least I like to think that they were. I was invited to attend a dinner tomorrow night "in my honor", so I guess I can take that as a sign that the presentation was good.

I was nervous going in since expectations were pretty high. While waiting to speak I also felt a new reason to be nervous, since there was a protocol for calling the speakers up to be seated that I didn't realize until I had already sat down. Then I ended up sitting directly in front of the rostrum during the other presentation when my seat got wedged in between the rostrum and the conference table. Hopefully these breaches of protocol won't get me banned from the country.

The university that sponsored the event gave me a gift, which is very nice, perhaps the nicest gift I have ever received for speaking:

Now I just have to figure out how to pack it in my suitcase...

And yes, they still referred to me as "Doctor"...