5 - Reflection and Advice

At long last, this ordeal pleasurable experience has concluded.  This blog post is going to be a reflection on today's Teddy Bear Talk and not so much about geography:

I am a pessimistic person.  I don't like presenting.  I get stage fright.  I detest public speaking.  I am not a confident person.  I am seldom sure of anything.  However, today seemed to have been an exception - although I thought I could have done better, it seems my Teddy Bear Talk was well-received.



I didn't know how long I was up there, and I was trying very hard to shorten my presentation down to five minutes when I rehearsing the night before and this morning.  However, when the presentations began, I had to (try to) relax.  I stopped going over the presentation in my head and listened to some well-made presentations today, even though my heart was racing every moment so I couldn't really focus.

When it was my turn, I felt unsure of everything.  I had what I was going to say all down, but my failure to smoothly put my presentation on the computer seemed like a bad omen.  The worst part of the presentation was, surprisingly, not the presentation itself, but right before.  On the stage, all alone in the spotlights, I had to wait.  I made the right choice to not awkwardly stand around the entire time waiting to begin, so I sat down.

The pressure was on.

But I remembered to calm down and relax, and so I spent that time sitting town meditating and gathering the energy to project my voice with the first three words, "This - is... JEOPARDY!"  Although I didn't really work on the bulk of my presentation until yesterday afternoon, I knew for a long time that my presentation would begin with Jeopardy, my favourite game show, and come full circle at the end.

I had also gone insane throughout this project.

I knew the introduction was the most important part to capture attention or else I would just be talking to myself.  When I began, all the nervousness flowed away and the stage was my own.  I talked about my atlas and how it was a good idea for me to not have messed with Texas.  For most of the beginning of my presentation, I had talked about and stressed the importance of my atlas before suddenly letting it drop to the ground, which if you couldn't tell, was (supposed to.be) the climax.


This phrase actually originated from an anti-littering campaign!

I have read in many a blog that people were scrambling to find the larger purpose of their projects, but I was pleased to know that what I was researching had a purpose that I knew of in the beginning.  I'm not sure whether people will actually buy in to the idea that geography was important, but what was important is that I expressed my true feelings towards geography.  I like geography not for getting categories right on Jeopardy (although that certainly is a thrilling experience), but I know that the pursuit of geography is in and of itself a noble task.

And of course, after my presentation came the Jeopardy game, which wasn't as orderly as I had expected, but I still got a kick out of it.  Overall, I am satisfied with my presentation.  I don't know if I'll ever present as effectively ever again, because this was indeed something I was truly passionate about, and that could have been inferred from my Teddy Bear talk alone.

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One final thing I would like to add is that I did not follow a rigid script for my presentation.  If you want to know why, here's a bit of background information:  Last year for another enrichment project which I did okay on, we had to be an inventor/explorer (I was Marco Polo).  The requirement was that the presentation be memorised, so I assumed I had to have a script and memorise it even though nothing was explicitly stated about a script.

The problem with blind memorisation is that you're too focused on getting the words correct rather than the overall meaning of the presentation which can be said in multiple ways.  The script will limit you to one way and if you fail to word it correctly or even forget, it looks terrible.  I learned about that the hard way when I briefly froze during my Marco Polo presentation - that is literally the worst feeling you can get while presenting, having failed to recall the script and having no lifeline, standing up there silent and stricken while everybody looks at (and probably judges) you.

But everybody used scripts, so I was hesitant to abandon the script "strategy".  I didn't think I could just talk on my feet, for I needed something to lean on.  Of course, with the presentation I gave today, I didn't have a script, but I didn't just talk on my feet.  I did rehearse my presentation but with no note cards; I used the power point itself.  I had developed this good middle road for presenting a few months ago for the PJAS science fair, because I knew I couldn't memorise a ten minute script.  When I got a first in PJAS, I knew this strategy that abandoned the script worked.

I want to tell you this because while it's already probably too late for this presentation, if you give this strategy a try on subsequent presentations, it just might work and save you the mind numbing experience of having to memorise hundreds of words.

Commented on the blogs of Simon Schiller, Jason Shu, and Paul Scott