Presentation Stress

I don't understand it but I was super stressed out for the past week. I haven't been sleeping well; my dreams were filled with horror scenes about the presentation going badly and my supervisors scolding me for it. So sleep was affected and I had nerves all the way up till today. The practise session I gave in the lab wasn't too bad. But the episode before that was bad. My supervisors went through my slides with me and Gary was criticising practically every slide. That was so demoralizing especially when you always hope to do well in front of them. Still, I took in all the criticism and made the changes accordingly. Then just before the presentation, I was so nervous that I couldn't sit still. Fortunately the room was tiny and not everyone came so I presented to a pretty small group of people. The comments I had after that helped a little and I also agreed on some of the points mentioned. One of the more interesting things that was pointed out was regarding the template that I was using. One of them didn't like it because it actually looked like it was a template for some company. So he said that if I was going to use something that looked like a business template, I might as well use the lab's template and do some advertising at the same time! Funny and I changed my template immediately after that. Everyone said that I did well for this session but I didn't think so. I talked much too fast and only clocked about 12 minutes when I should be talking between 14-15 minutes. I was also quite confused with some of the points I was supposed to say so I needed to do more reading. Anyway, it was some relief for me since I could sort of relax till the real presentation. So I took a "break" and tried not to think about the upcoming presentation but it didn't do me any good. I was still dreaming about it. I played all weekend and ended up going for a colleague's housewarming party on Sunday which took up the entire day. It was good to talk to people outside the lab though and I got to meet various boyfriends/husbands of my labmates. The food was good as well, seeing that the colleague's husband was a trained chef. After the party, my friend and her boyfriend offered to send me home. They are both from Germany by the way and my friend is on an attachment in the lab while her boyfriend had a 4-year contract with Ikea and he was working on setting up a new branch out in Logan. Before we went back, we drove up to the sea since it was just a few minutes away and the sea breeze was so wonderful. I could have stayed there all day. There were pelicans and seagulls and the clouds were magnificant. They then sent me back to my doorstep even though they stayed pretty far away from my place but they were so nice about it. The next thing I know, it was Monday and I went down to the morning session of the presentations to get a feel of what it was going to be like. It made me more worried though, after hearing how good the students were presenting and hearing the kind of questions they had to answer. Then I was at the lab trying to see if I needed to make any changes to my slides and also get some last minute information for my project. I think I was panicking a little because there was just so much to read and I couldn't possibly predict the questions the judges were going to throw at me. Sure I was real stressed but I tried to act nonchalent. My supervisor and a friend were really nice about it. They kept reassuring me and I really appreciated that. Chris came over for dinner (I owed her baked pasta from a bet which I lost; it's a long story) and then listened to my presentation. She took my timing (11 minutes 40 seconds,ARGH!) and gave me good comments about how I could improve my presentation. So after she went back, I tried to relax a little by watching America's Next Top Model and that helped for the 45 minutes the show lasted. Next I did a last practise run before I went to bed with more nightmares. I woke up at 7 am to go down and check out another morning session of presentations. Heh the judges know me now that I've been there twice and one of them even mentioned that it was good to see students coming down to listen to these seminars. He should have said student instead of the plural form since I think I was the only one kiasu enough to keep going for these seminars and I also had problems sleeping. This morning's seminars weren't as good as the previous ones. One guy talked really fast and I couldn't catch what he was saying because he was mumbling a little. I also felt that his presentation was a little off-focus. The next guy read entirely from the slides, occasionally stopping to describe certain picutes. Another girl was nervous and she got a little lost during the presentation. Maybe she forgot what she wanted to say. She had a big group of supporters though; a total of 4 of them and they even brought their own laptop for her to use. I felt a little more reassured knowing that these other students were also nervous and weren't so perfect. It made me feel like I had more room for error. Still the questions were scaring me and I started to over-analyze everything. I couldn't take it anymore so I left after the 3rd presentation and went home to sleep. Once again, more bad dreams about the presentation until Chris called and came over for the final practise. This time I clocked 12 minutes and had explained my project more clearly according to Chris. It's good that I had her to help me out. She left to go for a birthday lunch with friends while I prepared to go down to the lecture room. I thought we had to go 30 minutes early so that we could load our slides onto the laptop there but when I got there, a lecture was taking place and so I had to stand outside with all my nerves and butterflies waiting for it to end. At long last the students left the room and one of my examiners came. He commented that it was finally my turn to present after seeing me at all the presentations. Yup, my turn indeed! I had to sit through 3 presentations before it was my turn. The first guy was really bad. He didn't seem prepared at all and it didn't help that he couldn't speak very well. I totally stopped listening after a while and I think the judges had a lot of problems understanding as well. They asked questions mostly based on his slides and asking him to explain certain parts again. The guy left immediately after his presentation. The next girl did pretty well. But she was unlucky. A lecturer named John Fuerst came in to listen and he asked her some pretty profound questions and he mumbled. Steph came along after this and I was so glad to see a friendly face. By this time, the butterflies in my stomach started growling. I think it was partly because I hadn't eaten anything the whole day. The next presentation was given by a Vietnamese girl and it was pretty boring. I wasn't listening anyway since I was too busy freaking out about my turn. Gary (one of my supervisors) came in during her presentation. Actually I had spotted him loitering outside the lecture room around 1.20 pm but I guess he didn't want to come in so early. Narelle (the other supervisor) arrived around 1.50 pm, 10 minutes before I had to go up. By this time, I was shivering and my teeth were chattering. I couldn't sit still and was REALLY freaking out. My legs were shaking as I stood up to go to the front of the room but I told myself to be confident. Hence I stood straight and tried to walk as if this meant nothing to me. Once I started talking, I didn't think. The words flowed although I was aware that I was talking fast and I had missed out on certain points. I tried to relate the talk to the pictures (I had quite a few of them and some were quite gross) and used the pointer. I said all that I should and then it was time for questions. Damn, the questions practically flowed out from the 2 examiners. Immediately after I answered one, another was asked. I was worried because they were asking a lot of questions related to applications in the industry and my knowledge was limited. I had totally thought they would be asking more on my approaches and methods used. Boy was I wrong! I tried my best even when some of the questions stumped me. How was I to know why Salmonella was more well-associated with chicken instead of pork and beef? Sigh...I answered all the questions for almost 10 minutes (by right, we only have 5 minutes of questions) and then walked back to my seat where Steph and my supervisors were waiting. Yes I was quite upset about how the whole thing went. They did say I did well and that I seemed relaxed and I spoke well but my mind kept replying all the mistakes I had made. I just wanted to go home and sleep. Narelle did suggest going for a coffee or something and I kind of regretted not going with them when I got home. Oh well, too late for regrets. The relief and the feeling of a burden being lifted didn't hit me till 5 pm. I was still too edgy to feel it so I went to sleep. I needed to have some sleep that was unaffected by bad dreams. I needed that so badly.