Presenting the Finnish Parliament

Yesterday was the day for presenting my group's presentation on the functions, organization, and responsibilities of the Finnish Parliament (Suomen Eduskunta). I'm not sure why, but I was unusually relaxed as I gave this presentation. I'm not generally nervous about presenting to a class or a group (when I know the material I'm presenting anyway...), but this time I was uncannily relaxed as I gave what could've quickly turned into a really boring presentation. I ended up talking for about 15-20 minutes instead of the 10 I was supposed to, but that was because people were engaged and asking questions and such, so no harm there. Afterwards some of my classmates even came up to me to compliment me on my talk, something that hasn't happened before but that I was quite flattered by. The slide here shows some of the schematics I used in the project, and gives you an idea of the "exciting" topics I had to cover. My favorite part of the presentation was where I was supposed to go into a comparison between the Finnish case and that of my home country. After briefly trying to explain a little bit about a bicameral legislature and the compromises necessary between the houses, I flipped to a slide with screen caps from the School House Rock "I'm just a bill" song and gave them the web address telling them that if they were really interested, this was a better way to learn about it. In the end, probably the best presentation I feel I've given. Now to do it in Finnish.... In a couple weeks I am going back to visit the Rotary club that hosted me as an exchange student, and so there I will be presenting some remarks (hopefully not an all out presentation, just an update on my life, where I'm living in the states, and what I'm doing there) and these will have to be in Finnish. Something tells me this might not be as successful... hah!