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olorielLooking at my flist, today seems to be a bad day for academia.
I only had to do a presentation today, neither exam nor job interview, but it still went... meh.
Very meh.
It's not graded and even if it were I don't need the credit points anyway, but it was for the prof I want to do the exam with. I'd meant to show him, through this presentation, that I am made of academic awesome.
Did, instead, show that I am made of academic blah.
Took too long, for one thing, but that's not the worst.
I just fumbled the presentation. The whole thing. I'd prepared it really lovingly and looked up all kinds of additional stuff I didn't really need (up to and including the whole bloody thing in Latin). And it was awesome. The way I'd thought I'd do it, I mean.
But as per usual, what looks like precious stones in my head and lands on paper as, at least, coloured glass, turns to sand in my mouth. Oh, there were one or two moments that worked about as I'd planned them, but on the whole... gah. It's as if as soon as I stand in front of the class, everything that made sense during the preparation suddenly turns out to have been incoherent bullshit, and all I can do is try not to let anybody notice, which of course I do, and that's the end of it. Kept forgetting words. Kept repeating the same stupid phrases. Kept being unable to explain the Latinate constructions beyond "as you can see this is very unusual in English". Had to say "Yeah, right, I should have looked that up" twice.
*headdesks*
Was so frustrated with myself that I actually apologised towards the end ("One more construction and I'll leave you in peace." Addi (Adolf-Manfred - what kind of parents name their poor kid Adolf-Manfred? In the 1980s?! And he's a really nice guy, it's just - the name!): "In pieces?" - "No, in peace." - "But 'in pieces' would be funny too. Like, shattered." - "I hope not."). There were no questions, so I said "I seem to have overwhelmed everybody - sorry," and returned to my seat. Prof took pity then and said "No, that was very good" (normally he says "fairly good", so he must have thought I was close to tears or something) instead of the appropriate scathing review.
In conclusion: awful.
I realise it probably felt worse then it was - several people told me after the lecture that they thought I made my points (what points?) very clearly and that it was a good presentation, and actually Prof. K. is not exactly what you'd call the merciful type as far as I know, so perhaps the sand and incoherency and bullshit is all in my mind (....ew.). But I can repeat that to myself however often I want, the big red fail in my head won't go away. Because even if it wasn't as bad as it feels, even if it was actually coherent, it's nowhere near as good as it bloody should have been.
Blah.
No, this is not my Rabbit Hole Day entry. This is real life. My brain hath emptied itself (or should I say exinanited, in the light of my presentation?), and accordingly I am unable to observe anything that needs more than two coherent thoughts. I mean, coherent angst-free thoughts. I could tell you some fun facts about the Douay-Rheims Bible translation and Latinate constructions in Early Modern English though. :p
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no subject
Date: 2009-01-27 09:43 pm (UTC)Adolf-Manfred: that name will haunt my days forever.
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Date: 2009-01-27 10:37 pm (UTC)Aber ich kenne das Gefühl auch, im Kopf ist alles ganz toll, aber die Realität holt einen dann doch wieder ein. Mir hat es geholfen, die Dinge etwas entspannter anzugehen, man ist bei Vorträger lockerer und kommt besser rüber.
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Date: 2009-01-28 06:01 pm (UTC)Jetzt hatte ich mir halt allzu fest vorgenommen, den Prof mit meinem Referat (das nicht benotet ist, für einen Teilnahmeschein, den ich eh nicht brauche, in einer Übung, die ich aus reinem Interesse mache - ja, ich weiß ja selbst, dass das irgendwo absurd ist) zu beeindrucken, dass er mir in der Prüfungsphase schon gnädiger entgegentritt und mehr Chancen gibt (denn er wüsste ja, dass ich es eigentlich kann).
Andererseits ist es vielleicht ganz gut, dass die Erwartungen jetzt nicht so hoch sind - dann kann ich sie auch nicht enttäuschen. Vielleicht kann ich ihn ja stattdessen positiv überraschen. >_>
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Date: 2009-01-27 10:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-27 11:10 pm (UTC)That happened to me once during the presentation in one politics class. The topic was so easy and I liked the class but didn't really know many of my classmates well. All most of them knew about me was that I was studying English as well and was studying for Lehramt (zu der Zeit noch).
The text I had to work on had been in English, so all of these English phrases got stuck in my head and I totally failed at explaining the processes involved in German so I used a lot of colloqialisms and on the whole made an utter idiot of myself. -_-°
The worst bit was that my classmates all looked at me with pitiful screaming out to "and she wants to be a teacher????".
Pöh.
*huggt dich nochmal*
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Date: 2009-01-28 05:49 pm (UTC)*clings*
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Date: 2009-01-27 11:57 pm (UTC)*hugs*
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Date: 2009-01-28 05:55 pm (UTC)On the one hand, today a presentation group that had missed a point or two that he would've liked to have had made (is that even grammatical?) got a pretty harsh reply after class when most people had already left ("You know, I am really disappointed you didn't..."), so I keep hoping that maybe the horrible really just was in my head. You're perfectly right about the perfectionism, at any rate.
On the other hand, I did make a lot of stupid mistakes. I mean, there literally were parts where I just stood and stared at my sheets and commented on some lame matter of course in very uneloquent English because I didn't know what else to do. I didn't break down crying, at least, but it definitely wasn't "good". >_>
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Date: 2009-01-28 01:24 pm (UTC)it was for the prof I want to do the exam with. I'd meant to show him, through this presentation, that I am made of academic awesome.
Pressure and high standards much? Maybe there were some things you should have looked up, but I supppose it really just appears worse because you wanted to impress your prof so badly... because you ARE made of academic awesome even if you sort-of botch a presentation sometimes, and this may not have been as good as you wanted. Professors are human as well, you may have had a bad day, he can't look inside your mind and see the big red fail, and so his view may be completely opposite to yours, seeing how he reacted. This coming from the one who completely botched the Australian Kriol presentation, still got an 'excellent, clear, well-articulated and sophisticated' and still sees that same big red fail.
And, you know - why don't you go and completely WOW him in the exam instead? To make up for this, so to speak. *hugs again*
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Date: 2009-01-28 05:48 pm (UTC)Obviously it doesn't always pay to start your presentation preparations early. >_>
See, I had hoped to have an easier stance in the exams. As in, he already knows that I am made of academic awesome, so if I am not entirely clear on something, he'll know that I meant the right thing. If that makes any sense.
Of course, I can still try and WOW him with my paper on The Shibboleth Of Elizabeth I, or some such. >_>
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Date: 2009-01-28 11:14 pm (UTC)...:( yes. Yes it was.
And I'm sorry your presentation went badly - man, that sucks. I'd say that from the other people's comments it at least sounds as if it was still okay from an objective viewpoint, but I completely understand the "it should have been so much better!" feeling.
Want to join me in the "damn you academia making me make a fool out of myself" corner? I have tea and biscuits.
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Date: 2009-01-29 09:47 pm (UTC)I'm so sorry your interview went so badly. Any chance it too was better than it felt? Will you get a definite answer at some point, or did they already say it was over? >_>
Tea and biscuits sounds good. Very good.