Today was the thing I most feared since joining grad school, and that is the coloquio. There is so much terror around it. The whole way it is made so you are all exposed talking about your project while your tutor, an external reader and your protocol seminar teacher are all serious and taking notes... I dont know. I couldnt sleep much last night. I was cold and awake and had a sore neck and a big headache. It took me no more than 2 hours to fix the presentation with the final changes and there it was, my silly power point of 17 slides for 15 minutes exactly. that is the amount of time i had to talk about it all, hypotesis, objectives, theoretical stuff, methodology, even work calendar... so anyway I uploaded it and tried to rest in the sofa with no luck. i was just thinking and thinking what the hell was going to happen, what the hell was i going to say, how will i say it, what would be the reactions.... trying to make it up in my head, at least the first sentence, but no i couldnt, i was too tired and stressed and sleep deprived and anxious...
so i finally do fell asleep around 4 in the morning, to wake up 2 minutes before 7 am... we had to pick up our external reader at the hotel at 8:30 so leaved the house around 8... only to be in a crash half an hour later....seriously, a crash? half an hour before my presentation? there was no time for fighting or arguing with the other driver, who hitted us from behind, so he offered money, we took it and moved on, our reader was already outside of the hotel...
he is an economist and social scientist from UAM Xochimilco, winner of an important prize for his thesis and work on software development in Mexico, soon to be published as a book, so anyway we talked with him as i had already gone through all the phases of nervousness, from not having a bra on (seriously, i fixed this of course haha) to wanting to throw up to...ahem... tummy ache... we finally arrived to Colson and ran to the Lian Karp room, where my presentation was to be held.
OMG.
I tried to stay cool. No, no stay because i wanst. I tried to at least appear cool. Breathe in, breathe out. there was no internet, ok plan b, plug in the blckberry, no reciognition, ok, plan c, go crazy... kidding... someone handed me an usb and after a quick trip to the computer center i come back with the damn ppt on usb and a printed protocol.
people sarted coming into the room. almost all my fellow students of the globalization line were there, soon my tutor was there too, as my seminar teacher. My bf handed me a cup of coffee and a glass of water and gave me just one final assurement that everything was going to be ok.
And ther i was. Front and center. i was given the go sign and I just started talking. It goes in a blur. I mostly read what was on the slides and made a few remarks. They were supposed to have read the document anyway. So i explained all i could for 15 minutes and then... OH AND THEN... each of theem three had 10 minutes to do crytical comments on it.
I have my notes but i will not look at them right now. I had some good comments too, specially regarding the "interestingness" (is that even a word?) of the thesis, the clarity of how the protocol was written, and the way it all seemed to work (hilo conductor is their favorite concept, i dont know what is the translation for that). They made a LOT of questions.
Then I had 5 minutes to answer: Well if you read the protocol it says the scope is exploratory. Thats right I already eliminated the whole correlation with performance and productivity. You see, at first I got involved with these subject because of a paper published by the World Bank...
And so I was done.
I got a cheer. (clap, claps) my tutor come to me and mumbled something i can remember, but he was looking happy :) and there, I crossed to the other side.
So there.
yay :)
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