Thursday 24 May 2007

Visit of the Heartlanders - the first time we did gallery guiding

And i really thought we had to guide by ourselves. It was so stressful I actually had trouble sleeping the night before, for fear of not knowing what to say when I actually did the tour. Luckily Gwynne supervised me for the 1st two tours while Nanthinee looked after Ruoyu, until we were ready to guide by ourselves. Somewhat.

The heartlanders were extremely enthusiastic and receptive to what we had to say. Some of the aunties and old uncles even contributed stories to us, such as the female King Cobra actually having 2 erm... genital openings as well! One uncle eagerly told me that he used to keep leopard cats when he was staying in Lim Chu Kang area, just at that period of time when we thought they were extinct! And of course they all oohed and ahhed at the wet station where we showed them tree-climbing crabs, and the display on "Things we eat". The older generation really consumed a greater variety of food when they were young as compared to us, the generation of MacDonald and KFC.

Special mention to the two kids, kx and ww, that I guided on the 3rd and 4th tour respectively: kx: an extremely cute boy with large goo goo eyes and keeps on running around touching stuff and I was so afraid he'll touch the arsenic on the displays. ww: very beautiful girl holding her two pieces of tissue paper pretending to fly... So cute... I'm falling in love with them...

All in all the guiding was fun and interactive, although very tiring, and I really enjoyed myself.

We have to thank:

Gwynne and Wei Song, our trainers, who used up a ton of saliva just telling the stories of the specimens to us interns. They also helped us, along with Nanthinee and Oi Yee, in the guiding during the actual day itself. We won't be able to survive without you all, thanx so much! :)

And of course to Otterman, who trained us in a militaristic manner. (He probably will think otherwise, he always thinks that he's being soft with us T_T) He stressed us all out by making us memorise all the dates and places where the specimens were found 2 days beforehand. We had to look for information of 10 exhibits on our own, we even had to find out where exactly they are located in the museum by ourselves.He taught us on presentation skills and how we should structure our talk such that it flows. We know that we still have a lot to learn on guiding, but we do hope that we didn't let you down yesterday. And once again, thank you so much! :)

PS: So sorry we couldn't answer the question of when the King Cobra was killed. I'm not sure about Ruoyu (she prob just got stunned when u suddenly asked) but on my part I really can't rem dates... Am trying... Now I know it's 2002 ^^

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