Last week I got my wish. I gave a 1½
hour speech to criminal justice majors at a career institute. I can tell you
right away what I did wrong. I should have prepared more exercises to promote
interaction and self-awareness. With an off-the-cuff brainstorm, I told them to
close their eyes and go back to grade school, to a favorite teacher or class,
to the sights, smells, and sounds of their past. At the end of the exercise, I
think they understood. They had time travelled to the past. When I had them
think about their next vacation, they time travelled to the future.
The best part of my speech happened when
I relived and relayed my work on murder cases. I discussed how to deal with a
psychic (don’t say much, just ask a few important questions) and tried to
explain to lay people where I get my information. I even had one woman push me
about my source. She wanted to know definitively if it was God. I didn’t have
that answer. What I hated was….well…most of it. When I work on a case, it’s sickening and heart-wrenching. With police detectives, I state what I know and think, and be done. At the institute, when I talked about a murder case from the past, I again felt sick.
I
might speak to classes again, but not as a regular gig. It was the right thing
to do, but it didn’t feel so good.
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