tooth soup

photo credit: bunchofpants

I presented a

talk today, to my research group. Very unhappy with how it went, to be honest. The best advice I’ve been given about giving talks is to tell a story, complete with characters and a solid plot, and to enjoy yourself. Going over it last night I thought I’d achieved that first bit, but in execution it crashed and burned. I’ll say it in analogy form to soften the blow: about halfway through the talk I realised I’d omitted some pretty basic sub-plots, and now the characters were flailing about using forks to clean their cars, and the reader had thrown down the book in disgust. Essentially, I think I either lost or didn’t impress half the audience. So by the end of the talk I was in panic mode and clicking through slides not really explaining myself very well.

To make matters worse, the first question I was asked…wait, you know how sometimes, in pressure situations your mind just goes blank and if someone talks to you, all you hear is sounds, not words? That was pretty much the first question. I think I remember something about water locations in the neutron beam, but otherwise it was just noise. I mumbled something about not being able to answer that question (at least I told the truth, right?) and thankfully my supervisor stepped in to save me. I answered the rest okay, although again some of the questions I had to fumble through because I was very near that familiar point of walking quickly from the room. So, to quote the affable Ben Folds from one of his four-and-a-half songs, “Today is shit day, that’s what today is.”

In other news, NaPoWriMo finished yesterday and I’m very pleased to announce that I did manage to produce a poem every day for thirty days. As is obvious from reading them, the quality was variable and depended on a) whether I had enough time to sit down and think, b) whether I had any sort of idea of what I was doing before starting to write, and c) what I’d had for breakfast that morning. I think every single one of these was written in under an hour, most of them in under half an hour, and about 10% of them in under ten minutes. I’m sure you can point out which of them fall into that last category. If you are feeling plucky, I’ve included the list below with my personal top five (can you tell I’ve just read High Fidelity?) highlighted in bold. But feel free to inform me that my choices are wrong and point out ones you like if you feel that way inclined. Right now I’m off to start the first in a long line of alcoholic beverages to hopefully erase that talk from my head.

Week one:

1. Cherub
2. Emeritus
3. Park bench scene
4. Aohkigahara Forest
5. Helpline
6. Monkey business
7. An ice-cream fib

Week two:
8. The hierarchy of snails
9. A man climbs a tree
10. The feast of the businessmen
11. He maintained his innocence from day one
12. Dare
13. Strasbourg, 1518
14. Holly

Week three:
15. Umbrella
16. Weeknight Warrior
17. (Sevenling) Bar scene
18. A Pantoum of the Great Recession (after Robert Hass)
19. Takeaway
20. Life as a landmine
21. An obligatory catch-up limerick

Week four:
22. On popular science
23. Katamari Poetry
24. Stewart (Stewie to his mates)
25. A lipstick speaks out
26. Not a people person
27. Morning drive
28. musiku

Epilogue:
29. The evening drive
30. Knitting needles

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