First gallery presentation for the NMS training...

Last Saturday, I had my first gallery presentation at the National Museum as a docent.

This was part of the two-month intensive museum guide volunteer training.

The presentation was only for five minutes. There are two more to be done. The next one will be a 10-minute presentation, while the last and the finale will be a full one-hour tour. I'm going to be positive and say that it is very exciting instead of saying it was nerve-wracking. Hehe!

At the end of my presentation last Saturday, it did feel quite exciting and enjoyable. To be a museum docent was something I've always been wanting to experience. It's just amusing that I had the opportunity in another country. Hehe!

Initially, I thought that I would only be presenting to my two group mentors. However, it turned out that each one had to present to the mentors as well as the entire team. That made it more exciting. Hehe!

It was very good practice though. After my talk, I received good feedback from my mentors. As for points for improvement, I needed to work on my "hook" to catch the museum guests' interest.

The topic assigned to me was the Singapore Stone (pictured above). It's one of the national treasures of Singapore. It is one of the oldest relics of the country that gives insights to Singapore's pre-colonial times.

If you want to know more about it, meet me at the Singapore History Gallery of the National Museum. Hehe! Kidding.

Aside from the gallery presentations, the afternoon was a continuation of the weekly lectures on Singapore history. The one-hour lecture is immediately followed by a one-hour walkthrough at the section of the gallery that was the topic for the afternoon. The two curators who have so far given the lecture/walkthrough have been very inspiring and have given trainees ideas on how things should be done. (On a side note, they're both still very young!!! I'm so impressed. Hehe!)

So far, the past three weeks have been very interesting. The whole training is a crash course on Singapore history. For the past few weeks, I've been reading a book entitled Singapore: A Biography which summarizes the country's history from pre-colonial times up to the recent decades.

As an international museum guide, I feel that one good thing about it is that I am able to somehow compare and contrast the things I learn about Singapore history to Philippine history as well as current events in Singapore and around the region.

(Previously, I was very nervous about not having any background on Singapore history compared to my fellow docent trainees. After three sessions and a lot of reading, I feel like I am somehow catching up. Also, I am starting to realise that being a good docent doesn't necessarily mean memorising all the dates and events. All the facts and figures are available in different formats (Google, books at the National Lib, talking to resource persons, doing own research) -- what matters is how you present the story. Somehow, realising that minimised my insecurity about not knowing much about SG history. Hehe!)

There are a number of other trainees from other countries as well, including a fellow Filipino. It's great that everyone in the group has been very friendly and helpful. In my own group, there's one more guy and four women. We're quite an interesting mix, I think.

Looking forward to the next training sessions. :-)