[JAMES MCMORROW AKA. QUALIFIED PAL LEADER]

The last two days have been rather long and also rather different to what I'm used to. I didn't know what to expect from the two workshop days, but by the end I learnt that choosing to be a PAL leader was definitely a good choice and I was excited for it all to begin properly.

Yesterday we were eased into the whole process. We were first told to pinpoint what our biggest fear about being a PAL leader was. Mine being that the first year students wouldn't respect my position. By the end of the day this fear had vanished though, as my confidence had grown and I felt much more relaxed about the whole affair. We were talked through the handbook, highlighting key points, and listening to others explain the sections that they had read further into. The main point I feel was that the reason of PAL was for it to be beneficial to the first years, and to get them to be active and think. In the afternoon we were split into groups and we had to complete a PAL session of our own. My group being given 'Stage Fright', which was to do with critiques and having to stand up in front of the class. We weren't given much time to plan, and it felt like we were being thrown a bit into the deep end. However when it came to it, I found that I was a bit of a natural (don't want to sound to big headed!). I don't know where it all came from but I was able to answer every question that came my way, however obscure it was. I felt a bit nervous at the start talking, with all eyes on me, every word being listened to. But this nervousness quickly disappeared and I enjoyed the interaction aspect.

Today was more of a wrapping up session than more training. We had to write reports of our PAL session from yesterday, and reflected on the workshop. We then had to decide what leaders we wanted to be in groups with. As I worked successfully with Dan yesterday it was a natural choice with him, as it was with Lianne as we are good mates and bounce off each other well. We were then required to write a plan of our first session. To wrap it all up we went over the fears that we had discussed yesterday, and it proved that the workshop had been a success as we all felt that we had overcome ours.