Wow! Great morning. Busy but seems to have gone well.

Started with the bad news that my Assistant was sick. Oh dear... she was booked to do a 10 minute presentation on the Library in general to the International students which I've blogged about enjoying doing before. Sent out an urgent email for help but didn't get a single response even to say sorry but no...

Meanwhile, the events I'd been responsible for arranging for the morning were fast arriving. Plus the external visitors.

Two former colleagues from TheOldPlace - thank you S and Z - had come down. S was running our coffee morning on haiku first thing and then both of them were telling us about Second Life and the presence that TheOldPlace has in there.

The coffee morning went well. More than a dozen of us there in the end and S did a great session that was streets better than what they'd have got from me. I'd have probably covered structure and maybe some history or something and been quite dull. S got us sitting in silence, walking in the rain and actually writing. Which is the key thing. Much buzz around the Library for the rest of the day.

The session on Second Life also went well with not only a fair crowd turning out for it, but also enough engagement to keep us there well after the advertised finish time. S and Z had to work hard for their lunch! We were shown what TheOldPlace has had built for them - very impressive, how it's being extended and what they plan to do with it. Marked difference with the approach taken here which is much more cautious.

In the middle of all that I'd switched to Plan B for the international students and was dragged out to do the presentation myself as no one else was willing to help. Stood listening to the previous speaker and then was the last of 6, I think it was, telling 70 odd students with varying levels of ability in English about various University services.

While I waited for previous speaker to finish I met a very late student at the door who just happened to be Czech so I could greet him with a 'Good day. How are you?' much to his astonishment. And I did my usual routine (if somewhat more briefly) of welcoming/greeting various languages in my talk which seemed to wake up a rather overwhelmed crowd and get them smiling. Hopefully it was more engaging than what they'd just had an hour of...

I was done in time to get back to Second Life for the last few questions...

Then lunch with S & Z over at the rather nice nearby cafe.

It'd be nice to be thinking about going home now... but book group this evening...