My Presentation Story

I am not one who absolutely dreads presentations either in school, or college.
But when I am asked to present a topic which I am only 50% clear about, it is gonna be a problem.

I spent my whole night reading the entire article back and forth, writing notes in between.
I then woke up early to prepare my 'handouts' on the computer for 2 hours.

And after all that work, I can barely tell anyone what is actually written among those pages.

Media and communication : theoretical traditions. Yea rite, screw you.

For starters, I didn't even know wat theoretical traditions mean. So I had to read the entire 6 long pages of articles to figure that out.

To be honest, I expected presentations to be a breeze in university.
I thought of complex articles but not THAT complex like wat I had!
In fact, it can be argued that my article is the most complex of all 30 articles in the reader. And I HAD to get that topic.

So back to my theoretical traditions.
So after spending many unnecessary minutes reading one INTRO paragraph over and over again, I finally understood it.
Yay for the introduction.
Then came the article.
Which kept repeating some "marxism" word.
Damn it.
I'm not fortunate enough to know what that means.
So I had to do some EXTRA research on the net.
Found out Karl Marx.
Who's dat? Sounds familiar.
EXTRA research again.
And my article is only at page one.

-_____-

Had only 4 hours of sleep until I woke up in the morning(my class was an afternoon class), to complete my handouts which was supposed to be handed to the tutorial group.

Never been so hardworking for quite a while. Spent 2 hours non stop without rest typing what I thought would be appropriate.
My handouts ended up having 5 pages alltogether.

So handouts done.
Had some extra time, so I prepared a paper to ease me in my presentation.
In the end, that piece of paper wasn't referred to at all during the real thing.

So after much work and hassle, I finally drove to the university.
Was late 10 mins. The girl who was assigned to the first reading was halfway through already.
Her handout was ONE sheet of paper.
I feel stupid now.

Then it was my turn,
my tutor, who was also my lecturer asked me to introduce myself.
Asked me for my ambitions..
I told him with a grin on my face, "I don't have a fixed ambition"..
Laughters could be heard around the room.
I liked wat I heard and saw. I think people may just like me. :)

So I sat down at a seat in the front of the class and began my presentation..

It started well..

"Well basically, my reading was on the theoretical traditions of media and communications.. it is the um.... theory behind the media and communications.. and where it was originated from.. and when.."

"The 2 main ... um... approaches were from the European continent and the Americans.. um..."

"and um..."

"um...yeah.. so there were the ideological critiques on media.."

You know my nervous giggle and head scratching when I'm lost? Well I did that. Alot of times.
Laughter occasionally erupted around the class.

And the whole presentation was like that.
I realised how ridiculous I sounded then I finally decided to give in..

"Ahh... sorry this article is pretty complex.. I didn't really understand the thing.. I'm trying my best here.. " (nervous giggle)

My lecturer cum tutor comforted me," nevermind it's ok. i understand this article is pretty complex for first timers"

WOW WAT RELIEF.

At least i dont bear the responsibility now.
At least it cleaned up my very tarnished reputation a little.
Never in my life have I had so many "ummm"s in my presentation before. And even if I did before, it wasn't excusable this time around. Because EVERYONE in my freaking class has freaking good english. (ego-talk) I realised I don't have the upper hand i used to have anymore.
:(

The best thing I had for my presentation was my handouts. -_-

Hey it's not my fault ok that I screwed up the thing.
Even the Unit Guide says MY article 'seems very complex for the first time but repeated readings bla bla bla...'
I don't see them saying that for the OTHER articles!!

So I didn't manage to impress the tutorial group with my presentation.
But at least I can take comfort in knowing that people thought I was funny. Well maybe not in a good way, but they still laughed right! They wouldn't laugh at someone who they don't like.. -_-
I even heard a girl saying "haha cute".
Not the wow-so-attracted-to-you-cute lah.. just the small boy cute.

At least people won't think I'm a snobbish egoistic person!

After my presentation, my lecturer was telling the whole tutorial group what my presentation was about and wat i was trying to say. He did it in such a way I never felt dumb or wrong or put down. It was like he was helping me translate my language into a language everyone can understand. So nice!

And he totally pwned me. Aiyah, lecturer wat. I admit I had doubts over the credibilities of lectures before.. but I got totally proven wrong this time.. they really do know their stuff.
The stuff he told the class regarding my article was done in a way so smooth and understandable!

And wtf.. it seemed like almost EVERYONE knew who Karl Marx was and what Marxism is.
The lecturer was asking everyone in class if they knew anything about those 2 things and there were people actually answering!

I seriously.
am so lost in general knowledge.

There were even several diff answers regarding Karl Marx ideas etc.

It started off when one girl asked me what his ideas were.
Then I said it was something I had to research on myself on the internet because it wasn't in the book.. it has something to do with capitalism.. the economy owned by private sectors.. and something regarding that.

Then another girl who is also a Russian politely corrected me ,"I think he was against capitalism.."

Then boom everyone started answering one after another.

I felt stupid.
And to think I had to RESEARCH ON THE INTERNET when everyone know who he was and wat he did at the tip of their fingertips.

Sigh.

On a positive note,
I'm feeling soooo much better now regarding my university course and life.
Yea I still may not have the mass of friends but at least I can approach people now without feeling super duper shy. All because I've presented in front of them. And they laughed at me.

And the burden of the whole presentation-fright thing which has gotten to me the past week!
All gone!!

:D

It's scary what a preparation for a presentation can do to a person. It actually blocked a few thoughts of mine. Thoughts which are now all free flowing in my mind.

Next headache would be what am i gonna do during the 2-4 hour breaks I have on wednesday and thursday. No friends wat. Wat to do. :|

I suddenly feel like I want to do well in this course.
Determination pls!

And hm,
I should really stop blogging about my university life.

-alexeO-