Every instructor critiques his or her own performance. We admonish ourselves for answering a question incorrectly, for not articulating clearly enough and not engaging the class. We have fifteen eyes tracking their presentation for seven hours a day. We try not to be neurotic about it but those fifteen student-filled evaluations always linger in our minds.

As a result, we are constantly aware of our tone of voice, our gestures, our demeanor, our enthusiasm and our professionalism. We are performers but we do not pretend; what we say must be exact. It must be detailed. It must be correct.

In some extreme circumstances, an instructor loses the confidence of the class and the client demands a refund. That has never happened to someone on our team. It might have happened with one of our business parnters in a rare case.

We are passionate about our work. We are proud of the fact that we can arrive at the customer with one day notice with no sleep on a plane and still provide a professional, deeply technical talk that directly helps each student.

We make it look easy because we have experience and repeated practice. However, we are all frayed nerves deep down. Our audience is human and as such, they are demanding and never completely satisfied. In the end, each instructor treats him or herself in the same manner as well.

This is why I am an exacting person with which to work. The audience always assumes that I am young and inexperienced. I always intend to exceed their expectations. I expect no less from myself each time. Unfortunately, I expect no less from the other people I work with as well.

On some occassions, I do selfishly wish that other people can sympathize with our reality. Not pity, but understanding.

On a lighter note, I've added a fellow instructor's travelog. Check it out if you want to know the best restaurants and bars in cities around North America. He was nice enough to update his blog while I was teaching. :)