I’ve got some serious word-block tonight.
Ok, so weird things going on in my head.
I’m still down about last week (don’t worry, i’m not going to mention the cat–aw Cheddar-bug) and my final and feeling like I did horribly & let everybody down. I’m embarrassed about it all. I know what I think about it all, but it’s kind of hard to put into words. Maybe I should try…
So skipping over that, I’ve been working on the trello integration again. My instructions were that now that I have an understanding of it, to start over–which makes a lot of sense since I’d made a huge mess before, and so I have. It’s actually kind of self-inspiring, i suppose is the term, to be doing this and to see that, even if it takes me a bit of time to do, I can totally do it. I am completely interacting with the Trello servers through their libraries. There are a couple things that I’m a little confused about, but for the most part, I’m getting & giving information, which is cool.
So… I tried very hard not to take anything from last week personally to the core-level–or professionally to the core-level for that matter–I tried to take it at an industry-level core, which is what I think it was meant to be. If that’s wrong, then… well, yikes! Uh… yeah, just yikes.
I’ve been giving presentations & writing papers my whole life. Granted in college, neither were admittedly great, but professionally since, I’ve had to give a number of presentations and write-ups and explain to the directors of corporate companies why something was or wasn’t. I’ve often been a front-line speaker for the site to both corporate leadership as well as customers. I’ve always been told that I’ve done well–perhaps it was on subjects that for the most part, i knew well–or well enough to speak on–so I exhibited a sense of confidence. But more than being told that I’ve done well, I’ve been trusted to do these tasks, which has to show some kind of professionalism, right?
I don’t know. I can’t think that the last decade of my life has let me down so much that other industries would laugh–not the right word–disregard(?), question(?), roll-their-eyes-at(?) my professionalism. I was always trusted to be a good front-face for the companies I worked for.
It was weird, because, well, maybe it was or maybe it wasn’t clear that my presentation was what I’d unfortunately put the least amount of time into. Ironically, all week, i was telling myself that the presentation is what I should be putting as much time as necessary into–as that is what i was going to present, but I also knew that once I had a topic, it would be the easiest of the three.
I don’t like public speaking, and in this case, it was the most dreaded task of the three. That being said, I am also aware that when I have the confidence in what I’m speaking about, I’m actually pretty good at public speaking–despite hating it. What was weird is that the morning of, I was so nervous about this “talk”, and then I did a final dry run through to help re-gather my thoughts, and I could feel myself–at times speaking very confidently, and I became less nervous about it even though I knew it still needed some organization.
In hindsight, tell a story–or in my case, practice what you are literally preaching, as one of the panel members indirectly stated. He told me that (paraphrased) “gina, the presentation was good–it got a little high-level, but the moments when you made it personal and talked about you, it was eye-catching”. I’ve always been a believer that no one cares what i have to say–i lack confidence in that realm.
Statistics are boring–nobody likes hearing them spoken to them–nobody, and if they do, it’s only to catch your mistakes. Of all those examples I gave, I should have told a story, not given facts–OMG! That’s like 101 speech giving–I even took a Dale Carnegie class on this (PS best self-improvement/leadership class I have ever taken!).
I’m thinking about the Therac-25 portion, and that could have been delivered in a totally different way to force personalization, which is what my whole talk became about–making it personal!
I don’t know. It is what it is. I know where I faulted, and I have guidance on where others think I could have done better. Except that the presentation was also the hardest task as it required thinking about a topic that my audience might relate to, and that’s why it was left til the last minute–i didn’t know what to talk about! So finally, i fell back on what i already knew–i felt like it was a total cop out. Maybe that’s the lesson to be learned–take the easy way out–but if i did that, where would i be today.
All that said, this post needs a lot of editing & reorganizing, because it is all over the place! But I need to go to bed (and finish tictactoC), so that I can wake up with those sweet little boys in the morning.
Rex:
Rex is planning to find & bring back both Brusly & Cheddar now with his monster truck. I don’t know if he understands or feels sadness, but he knows I’ve been sad–I’m better now after the weekend. Saturday was probably the hardest day for me; it’s been better since. Rex is a sweet little boy.
Leo:
Leo was outside tonight, and saw Tails run somewhere, so started calling her: “Day-ows! Day-ows! Doowwwwah! Day-owws! Cow-um!” Leo is a sweet little boy.
