Psychosocially, not bad
As far as my first international invited workshop/ lecture was concerned, I think that went pretty well. It was a little difficult to understand the exact requirements of the participants in advance due to the nature of the subject matter and the wide degree of variation in the background of the people who came along. But I thought we did at least a reasonable job of delivering the Foundations of Psychosocial Disaster Management course for the first time, and the feedback assessment forms seemed to bear that out.
After presenting on the Tuesday and the Wednesday, I had a relatively easy day yesterday. I had quite a busy time, with both work and social stuff. Dinner on Mt Coot-tha with Greg and Stephen from Queensland Health on Monday night followed by some work at the Queensland Health offices on Tuesday morning. Tuesday afternoon was the workshop, after which I met with my traveling mate Nick. We met in Queensland about 8 years ago, just before I started my clinical training in London. He was a teacher and I was an academic. 8 years later, he has married a Queenslander and has been living and working in Brisbane for 3 moths now and settling in. It was great to catch up in person, even if briefly. Wednesday was the conference and conference dinner, followed by Thursday at the conference again And last night I met up with my friend Claire - an Aussie who I met originally in London. She brought her daughter Ava along who was keen to meet again. Last time I saw her, she was 9 months old she turns 5 years old on Saturday. Ava was keen to see who this Sarb bloke was who was shown in pictures holding here as a wee infant. A funny dinner and she’s a lovely little girl - Claire in understandably proud of her.
Up at dawn this morning - 5am - to get to the airport for my flights to Christchurch and then on to Wellington. I struggle with smaller time zone shifts more than the larger ones, so I’m feeling a little tired and jaded. I probably look it too as I forgot my shaving gear. Home soon. For a few days at least.
October 29th, 2008 at 9:33 pm
When are you back in Wellington next?
U.P. have another great event coming up on Friday 7th November.
http://www.up.org.nz/assets/Newsletters/up-w2w-2008.pdf