I love almost every aspect of my job. I love teaching, I love researching, I love the subject matter, I love my coworkers. However, before you gag on all this love, I do want to clarify that there is one aspect of my job that I emphatically do NOT like: presenting at conferences.
Here is my summary of academic conferences for those of you not familiar with them. First, a bunch of academics gather together to revel in their collective genius. Then, scholars present on their most recent brilliant idea/analysis/critique/etc. Finally, other scholars point to potential issues/problems/questions in said work. Then everyone gets drunk and wild rhetorical scholar shenanigans ensue.
Not really. Although there is booze involved. The last part is my favorite for obvious reasons.
Unfortunately, presenting is a necessary evil in my profession. In fact, I will be presenting this very weekend. Yikes! Something about presenting my work in front of others makes me all nervous and sweaty and rashy on my chest and all those things together are extremely unpleasant.
Thus, the above quote. My survival plan is to exude confidence this weekend. My hope is that others will be so awestruck by my composure and confidence that they will believe anything I tell them. We'll see how that goes.
However, I must say that I am excited about the project I'll be presenting so hopefully others will be too. If not? Well there's always the free booze afterwards. Win win. :)
I hope you all have some fun plans the next few days. Have a great weekend and think good thoughts for me!
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