the presentation

... went great! we talked and answered questions for about an hour and could have gone longer. got great responses from my classmates, mostly about how much they learned and how cool it was that my mom would come with me to talk to the class. prof said she enjoyed the presentation, good information, well presented. her suggestion was to address the more common "conrtiversial" things that are going on in the news. i agree that this class is a good place for that, and i struggled with what/how much to put in the presentation as opposed to waiting for questions. partly we had a time shrotage (we were only supposed to have a half hour) and partly i didn't want to come off being defensive. like, if i start with "hi, i'm dena and i'm muslim, but i have never carried bombs in my shoes on an airplane" that might look a little suspicous. and many of the people in my class (and america) don't have the slightest clue what islam is actually about. so we have to start at the begining. one woman in my class (who i am really starting to respect for her admissions of ignorance and ability to change her paradigm) said she thought islam was like buddism, not like christanity. after the presentation, she was able to see the similarities to how she believes and not see us as the weird other. i'm sure i'll spend a lot of time perseverating over this question for the next time, cuz the prof asked if we'd be willing to come back again next semester. i thought that was a huge compliment and i'm excited to be able to refine the presentation and give it again!

Friday, April 27, 2007