Nervous ramblings

Advisor commented on my presentation draft last night, and I just finished fixing all his comments. They were minor. I made some fixes of my own, of course, and still have more to make. But I think the actual slides are nearly complete and ready for printing today. Will practice once today and continue adding to my notes for my presentation and then print this out today so that the actual presentation is done and ready, and I will just have my own preparation to work on for the rest of the week. 

I learned in the winter of 2012 that practicing makes a big difference. I didn't used to practice or prepare much for presentations or meetings. The biggest change in my behavior in this aspect came when I was interviewing for jobs in the winter of 2012. They sent me documents to read and I was supposed to prepare a presentation that I would give during my interview. I created the presentation and practiced it for about 4 hours total. I sat in the car (because I was staying with people at the time) and talked out loud to myself for hours. I set the timer for 20 minutes and kept running through the presentation over and over and over. At first, my slides were taking me about 30-35 minutes to get through because I didn't quite know what to say. Finally by about the 5th run-through or so, I got my speech down to near 20 minutes. 

That's my plan for this presentation too. It took me about 45 minutes to run through this presentation on Saturday with a friend, but that's because he was giving me feedback and I kept making notes about things to come back and research so that I could present the information properly. I'm sure that if I run through the presentation once today, tomorrow, Wednesday, Thursday, and a final time on Friday, I'm sure I'll have the speech relatively down. Then this will at least take care of 20 minutes of my meeting (I kind of wonder if I should sabotage my meeting and take like 30 minutes to talk, so that there is less time for questions, haha). 

Well, back to the point, practicing really improved my interview in the winter and I got the job. I was able to also rehearse the slides from memory after practicing it for about 4 hours straight, so that made things a little easier for me and I probably looked more composed when talking. I believe that any bonus points will help me (if I appear to be composed, if I dress up, if my slides look professional, if I smile, if I present in a business-like way) so that if I'm on the border of passing, my bonus points would probably bump me up to passing. If I can get some extra credit points for appearances, I will take it because I'm so nervous about this. Plus, if I look professional about the whole thing, that may compensate for a couple questions that I am unable to answer completely (I'm sure there will always be a couple of those in any presentation, so I'm hoping my bonus points will help balance that out).

After making those edits to my presentation, now I'm going to print out my next article to read and go to New Seasons for some food (I'm starving and don't have a lot of time to cook). New Seasons is basically a local version of Trader Joe's or Whole Foods. It's owned by a few local families and carries very similar items to Trader Joe's or Whole Foods -- fresh, local, organic, simple, sustainable foods. I'm staring at my wheatgrass that I bought there last week. :) I need good food.