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down to the wire
Apr. 10th, 2007 11:21 pmI have officially survived my first academic conference!
I swear I was literally twitching when I found out that I had to open up the first panel with my writing instructor present (for some reason she didn't go to any of my classmates' panels). For some reason I started downing ice water like vodka, which was rather a dumb idea in retrospect. Even after my hours of preparation this afternoon I still sounded like I was mildly unfamiliar with the English language, but at least it's over with. The professor moderating the panel ought to be a criminal attorney considering the sort of questions he used to cross-examine us afterwards, but my instructor told me afterwards that he was one of the more intense moderators, and he did have a lot of interesting points connecting all of our presentations that I hadn't really thought about before. Most of the questions were initially directed about the issue of suicide as self-affirmative, i.e. my topic, but thankfully after a while people started semi-politely attacking the guy to my left who argued against the legal protections of conscientious objectors. A couple of friends sat in the audience during my presentation, which was terribly reassuring.
Surprisingly, the food they served everyone was rather good, but then again, I'm starting to look forward to not having to go to the cafeteria next year as I'll have my own apartment. There is an art in taking advantage of free food when you can get it; it's a vital college skill, just as much as knowing the sorts of questions a professor is likely to ask on an exam or knowing the shortcuts to get from one end of campus to the other when classes are back to back.
And now I'm actually going to sleep because I feel like someone removed at least one of my vertebrae. Good night.
I swear I was literally twitching when I found out that I had to open up the first panel with my writing instructor present (for some reason she didn't go to any of my classmates' panels). For some reason I started downing ice water like vodka, which was rather a dumb idea in retrospect. Even after my hours of preparation this afternoon I still sounded like I was mildly unfamiliar with the English language, but at least it's over with. The professor moderating the panel ought to be a criminal attorney considering the sort of questions he used to cross-examine us afterwards, but my instructor told me afterwards that he was one of the more intense moderators, and he did have a lot of interesting points connecting all of our presentations that I hadn't really thought about before. Most of the questions were initially directed about the issue of suicide as self-affirmative, i.e. my topic, but thankfully after a while people started semi-politely attacking the guy to my left who argued against the legal protections of conscientious objectors. A couple of friends sat in the audience during my presentation, which was terribly reassuring.
Surprisingly, the food they served everyone was rather good, but then again, I'm starting to look forward to not having to go to the cafeteria next year as I'll have my own apartment. There is an art in taking advantage of free food when you can get it; it's a vital college skill, just as much as knowing the sorts of questions a professor is likely to ask on an exam or knowing the shortcuts to get from one end of campus to the other when classes are back to back.
And now I'm actually going to sleep because I feel like someone removed at least one of my vertebrae. Good night.
