Save the Best for Last

Hello.  I sit here on the cusp of what is going to be a fast paced, somewhat difficult, exam week.  And yet, I'm feeling pretty good.  Why, you ask?  Thats simple.

I had an overall successful second year talk. 

And the reason I still keep thinking about it is because I'm still shocked at how well it went.  Let me give you some context for why I'm so shocked.

Round 1 of presentation humiliation
Almost 2 years ago I had my thesis defense for my Masters.  My advisor fed me to the wolves.  My presentation wasn't that great because I had no idea what I was supposed to do for it.  But more importantly, my actual thesis was a piece of shit and I was subsequently torn a new one by one of my committee members.  My advisor sat at the table, nodded her head in agreement with what he said, and then after the torture was over, she told me to do whatever he wanted.  Wow. awesome.
Here is the "thumbs up, I failed my dissertation!" picture taken at lunch following the devestation.

Round two of presentation humiliation
Last spring, I had to give a presentation in my theory construction class on the models I had come up with to explain the theoretical/variable relationships I was proposing to test with subsequent research.  The presentation was all of 10 minutes and followed by Q&A with my cohort and instructor.  This didn't seem like such a big deal.  And in fact, once I had finished presenting, my cohort was spouting off how clear they thought my presentation was and how much more they understood my work!  I was feeling pretty good and accomplished.  Then, in the middle of the praises of one of my colleagues whom I deem incredibly intelligent, my instructor cuts him off and states "I'm going to stop you there and disagree with you all".  Pretty sure the air went out of the room.  My instructor then proceeded to go on what seemed like a 10 minute tirade.  I honestly don't remember much of it because it was somewhat traumatizing for me to be ripped to shreds in front of my cohort.  Not to mention I was the only one he did this to.  It seemed like all he thought was wrong with it was that one or two slides should have been in the front of the presentation instead of the middle.  However, this professor is known for pontificating, talking in circles, and being generally long-winded and incoherent.  So, to save what tiny scrap of digniity I had left, I tucked my tail between my legs and skipped the class I had immediately following and went home to sulk. 

That is the necessary context for the lead up to Thursday night.  The night before my talk.

My mom ended up coming down [which I learned later was done purposefully to either be here when things went bad and I needed to cry/quit grad school or to help me celebrate] and the boy I've been seeing for about 2 months also came over so that I could practice and get feedback from an audience.

I was born to be in front of a crowd.  I love it.  I have been speaking/performing in front of moderately large crowds since I was in elementary school.  So the fact that when I was supposed to practice my talk for 2 people and I was having extreme anxiety about it makes a major statement to the impact that those two experiences had on me.  The practice didn't go all that well.  Bobby told me after I gave the talk at colloquium that the night before he would have rated my talk a "B".  I wasn't feeling too good about the whole thing the night before.

Friday I woke up and got ready.  Put on an incredibly awesome, kinda sexy, but still very professional, black and white dress with black pumps and red jewelry.  I went in to school to do another practice talk with my advisor.  That practice was MUCH better than the previous night and I started to feel much better about what was to happen in the next hour.  I made a few tweeks to the powerpoint that my advisor had suggested and then headed over to Journalism.

My colloquium was the last colloquium of the year.  I figured hardly anyone would show up, except my friends.  Here's the kicker, less than 5 people from my cohort showed up to support me.  But a whole bunch of the first years and quite a few faculty showed up to hear.  And here's the best part - from the feedback and observations from quite a few people, this was the only talk where people were not screwing around on their computers, everyone was engaged the majority of my talk [with head nods and comments to neighbors], AND Brad Bushman didn't fall asleep! 

People who asked questions included: Brad Bushman [rage and video games], Brandon Van Der Heide [computer mediated communication], Lance Holbert [political communication], Kelly Garret [new communication technologies and contentious politicis], Stacie Powers [Psychophysiology, affect, and nonverbal communication], and Jennifer Kam [interpersonal, intercultural, and health communication].

I had Kelly Garret for research methods my first term at OSU.  He is intimidating and scary.  He is so extremely intelligent and well spoken.  So, when he asked me a question I thought I might shit my pants.  My answer, however, after one first semi-failed attempt, with a follow up question and subsequent second attempt wasn't too bad.  And it was so not-that-bad that Kelly came up after my talk and waited five minutes after Brandon Vanderheide was done with me to tell me that as soon as I stopped trying to fight telling the story, and told the story, he could finally get in line with my research.  And THEN he told me good job.  I think that meant the most to me.

Others came up to me afterwards: Brandon Vanderheide [he seemed super excited and interested in what I was doing], Kelly, Susan Kline [who hugged me and looked very proud of me], John Tchernev, Jodi Whitacker, and Melanie Sarge.

It was a good day.  I'm happy with the way it all worked out.  And its over!  No more looming talk.  I can move on to the next big thing... one more term of classes and then my Comprehensive exams! [eek!].  But, I have a while until then [kinda].

Thanks for reading this long entry.  I know I ramble a bit.  I get it from my mother.