TEDTalk Reflection: The End in the End

Wow, has this been a roller coaster ride! There have been some real ups and downs, but overall this project has been pretty chill, besides week two, that was a real struggle. Other than that, I feel this metaphor is a pretty apt comparison to my process. (This is the part where I tell you I can't ride roller coasters because they make me sick, and that I hate them).Besides constant vigilance and manipulation, I've learned a great deal over the course of this project. However, I'm not going to go on a tangent about that, this is a reflection on the PAST after all. 

                                 

So, let's begin by stating the facts. 1. I am not good at public speaking (at least in my opinion, but I'm also a very harsh self critic) 2. I looked like a forty year old lawyer at a casual lunch meeting (shout out to Emma) 3. I felt a little off while speaking, but may or may not have faked the audience into thinking I wasn't (I really hope so)  Now that we got that out of the way, let's delve into the wide world of opinions. I tend to be pretty harsh on myself so this will probably end up being more of a roast of my speech than anything, but nonetheless we'll proceed. 

                                 

Public speaking and I have had a complicated relationship as long as I can remember. It's somewhat ironic, because I love talking. Honestly I could talk all day if I was given an interesting subject, regardless of how tired I am. However, I absolutely hate public speaking, which I assume comes from my fear of failure. That most likely comes from the fact that I haven't failed often, and when I did I didn't handle it well, but we won't go into my life problems (you've probably had enough of that by now). Point is, getting up in front of a crowd terrifies me in a way that dogs never could (Dogs are a short burst of terror, not a long feeling of dread and stress). 

You would think that the stress would be over now that my TEDTalk has finished, right? WRONG. The worst part of these projects are afterwards, once you've gone and you're left to reflect before you get to see how it is. Coming into these things, I like to keep my expectations as low as possible so I'll always be pleasantly surprised, but afterwards I over analyze my presentation and convince myself that I failed. There's actually a good chance I may have "failed" as I normally evaluate things on the Allison scale of acceptable which is completely and utterly messed up (and somewhat over-dramatic). This happens every single presentation, which really sucks cause I hate stressing and it's bad for your sleep, which I'm already deprived of anyways (thanks high school!). 

                                 

Onto bullet point three (bullet point two has no relevance in the reflection so we're skipping it). Unfortunately about halfway through my presentation, some people walked in. This threw me off my game for a second, and I wasn't entirely sure what to do before going back to my presentation and trying to play off my awkwardness, but it probably didn't work. I'm pretty sure at one point afterwards I was literally shaking, but hopefully nobody saw that either.

To be honest I actually learned a lot from this experience, as it taught me that presentations almost never go as planned because it's real life, and newsflash, real life is never perfect. Adapting to changes that come your way and improvising is an important skill to learn while presenting, so in all actuality I'm glad that I learned this lesson (though it was pretty terrifying in the moment).

                                 

The worst part of that was the off feeling that I had, but I'm sure that was just me stressing again. You know that feeling when you've practiced something for a really long time and you know how it's supposed to feel and how it's supposed to go, and then it doesn't for some unknown reason and the thing just feels off? Well that was the last third of my presentation, though I feel that it went reasonably well.

Side Note: Thank you all for being a great audience and helping me to lessen my stress by asking some pretty awesome questions at the end. You guys are the best!

                                 

When I got up on that podium, I wasn't nervous at all. I was stress ranting to Mr. Perlman in the gifted IE a few weeks ago, and he gave me a tip to limit the stress I was feeling, and I used it right before I went on and it worked, so thanks so much for the help! However, since I couldn't use the tip every thirty seconds or so, my nervousness increased steadily over the course of the presentation, but I had expected it. By the end, I realized that everyone was on my side and was looking for me to do great (another great life lesson from Mr. Perlman), so I relaxed a bit and tried to just deliver my conclusion as best as I possibly could, which I think went well. In my opinion, the conclusion is the best part of my TEDTalk, after all who doesn't want to call themselves a loser? Now I can check that one of the bucket list...

                                 

To be 100% honest, I would just like to say that I'm so proud of what both me and my classmates have accomplished over the course of this project. Everyone worked so hard, and I felt that these blog posts and presentations really helped to provide insight into the person writing them, and I just wanted to tell everyone how great of a job they've done.

Psych gifs, well that's a throwback...

For me specifically, I'm extremely proud of what I've accomplished over these past few weeks and the conversations that I've started. Even though it may have been awkward, I'm proud of how I got up on the Audion stage (something I was afraid of doing) and told you a story, and let myself shine through. I'm proud that instead of focusing purely on the grade I challenged myself to focus on the story and how I felt about the presentation, not the merit the grading scale gave it (though I would hope it gives me a mid B to low A in an ideal world). I'm proud of what I learned, explained, and listened to. I'm just very proud today, and everyone deserves a pat on the back.