Saturday, November 11, 2006
Ok, the verdict is out: I suck at presentations.
I've had 2 presentations in the past week and neither of them went well. I did a group presentation on Royston Tan's 15 on Wed and the group was lifeless and the class was equally lifeless. I made a verbal joke when I said, "the mainstream as the centre is decentred" but it did not elicit as much as a peep out of the class. And I was so proud of that pun! >__<"
I also launched into my part of the presentation without asking the class first to discuss what they thought about the portrayal of the heartland in the film. It was only much later in the presentation, after my part was over, that I remembered I ought to have asked the question. So in the end, the group being half-alive and energy in the class palpably draining away into nothingness, class participation was of course at a minimum and extremely perfunctory. And needless to say, our group won't be doing well when it comes to grading.
But the real truama was my presentation on Singapore's racial harmony policies for Japanese class on Fri. My partner said I looked perfectly composed but that's often a facade to throw everyone off. My heart was pounding away in my chest as I stood in front of the class and the other Japanese teachers invited by sensei to view our presentations. And it certainly didn't help that sensei invited my JS1101E tutor, of whom I was an absolute fangirl when I was in year 1 (he looked so cute with his long eyelashes! *o*) How sensei managed to get him to come is a great mystery; the tutor is known to be quite a bit of a recluse and well, what has he to do with a Japanese language class?
Anyway, back to the story. The presentation itself went pretty ok but one of the other Japanese teachers asked us if we could explain more concretely the HDB housing policy that regulates the sale of flats in accordance with racial quotas. My partner couldn't understand the question so I had to answer. I've never been good with speaking in Japanese off-hand, and faced with such a difficult question (to answer in Japanese; the answer is simple enough in English), my mind went into self-destruct mode and to my horror, I began babbling like an idiot in Japanese that hardly made any sense. My self was actually split into 2 at that moment of aphasia, and I was actually looking at myself and thinking, what in the world am I talking about? And everyone else was giving me the "Huh? What the hell is she talking about?" look, and I responded by giving them the "Oh crap, why the f**k are you asking me such a question!!??" look, and needless to say, I must have pissed off sensei very much. Like I've said, I suck at presentations. I often speak in an nonchalant, slightly ironic tone (I'm not the declarative type who speak as though they are announcing the Communist Manifesto) and I don't smile (obviously, I'm not the smiley type) and I tend to show my not-so-pretty emotions on my not-so-pretty face. Thank god my partner came to the rescue and the teacher finally understood what we were trying to say.
However, the horror isn't over yet till Mon when I have my oral exam. Facing sensei's cold, harsh face and dissolving into a mess of incoherent Japanese last year is not the kind of experience I want repeated this year.
kaoru said at 10:18 AM
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