a Way with Words
I could take a nap right now. Snuggled under false pretenses of my down "alternative" comforter--which kind of resembles a plastic wrap. But it's warm and it looks lovely, I wouldn't trade it for a real down comforter, which is not washable. It would make sense to nap since I spent 15 minutes enviously staring at my unoccuppied bed before starting my neverending assignments last night.
Instead, Blogger...I CHOOSE YOU!
Flipping to the daily anecdote section of my life: Congratulations, in the hall of Michelle Chen's most embarrassing moments, there has been yet another addition. For my "What every lawyer, citizen, and business man needs to know about Molecular Biology" class, I had to make a presentation on Mitochondria. Like every other important project in my life, I put it off until the VERY last minute. But also like every other important project in my life, I got it done--minus the sleep, plus the stress, plus the energy/caffeine drinks. So on the big day, I arrive in class, apparently not as early as the professor would have liked her presenters to, only to find out that my beautiful powerpoint presentation, the one with the latest background design from microsoft works.com, the one with the lovely pictures that my professor nagged me to add, the one I skipped class to work on, did not open correctly on her computer. More precisely, it opened as one blank slide. One fucking white slide--in place of my 27 carefully crafted to "please boost my grade" slides. Typical. So typical. Frantically, I rushed over to tell my professor, trying to appear both confused and apologetic at the same time. When it became clear that while I was in class, my presentation was not, I tried to decide between making a dash for the door and breaking down in front of the whole class--both of which by the way, would have been better than what I actually did. So the professor, whose face I am currently trying to paste onto a Voodoo doll, demanded that I talk about Mitochondria anyway, without my powerpoint. There are somethings you should know about me, I am an appalling public speaker. I trip over my own words, I get the facts confused, and I make eye contact with inanimate objects located above or below me. In third grade, we had to pick a biblical story and make a visual of it, I picked the scene where Moses crossed the Red Sea. My mom actually made most of the shoebox art for me, which meant I not only had an animated Moses, but the Red Sea actually parted! I won first place, and for my prize I was taken outside into the hall where I had to speak about my project in front of a video camera. I FROZE. Till this day, my dad has the tape, and maybe even copies of it--of me standing there holding my moses in a shoebox, looking completely dumbfounded. I looked up, I looked down, I even smiled at Moses, but I did not speak....for FIFTEEN WHOLE MINUTES I became mute. I have a history of bad presentations. For my Commercial Chinese class last year, I made a presentation on Maotai liquor. Halfway through, because my Chinese was so broken and I was clearly reading from slides that I couldn't understand, my Chinese professor took pity on me and told the class we were "out of time." Back to biology, back to this alternate reality where professors have been replaced by robot hags who lack feelings, I had no choice but to present Mitochondria without slides. It was every bit as humiliating, it wasn't "better than I had expected" and I expected the worst. I was a nervous wreck, I leaned against the blackboard to support myself in case I fell from the sudden outpour of nervous sweat. I never noticed how dyslexic I could be but at that moment I was, I couldn't even pronounce cytoplasm or Mitochondrial DNA. My notes, if you can even call them that, were supposed to be supplements to my presentation-- at best, they were disorganized and surprisingly contained almost nothing about anything important. I was screwed. I humored the class and the professor for 20 minutes, my TA looked horrified, some kid looked bored, some girls looked sympathetic. Basically I will forever be known as that girl who talked about Mitochondria for 20 minutes yet knew little next to nothing about it. I had to stop, so I said that since I didn't have my slides, I couldn't go on. My professor asked, "well are you finished?" Not exxacctly. I'm thinking about delivering a note to her that goes along the lines of something like this:
Professor Zigmond,
You're kind of a bitch.
Signed,
almost sorry to insult you
Operative word being..ALMOST.
Unfortunately, since I failed her last exam and have now failed my presentation, I have some major ass kissing to do before I can totally write her off and openly hate her. The damage is done and I think every student in that class knows not to pick me as their presentation partners...EVER. To make things worse, the TA was supposed to give a presentation as well that day. Her presentation was on, if you're cynical and always expect the worst you guessed it: Mitochondria. Typical. SOOOOO Typical. Needless to say, her presentation was the presentation that I'll never be able to give, which only made me feel worse.
I never found out what happened to my presentation. I ended up using a VERY rough outline and remaking each slide from that. I sent it to her at 2 in the morning after having labored another 4 hours on Mitochondria, which is now my favorite organelle in the cell. Her response was unappreciative and terse, perhaps I should apply her email style to my presentation.
"The Mitochondria is in the cell, has its own DNA, and has been said to resemble earlier prokaryotes. Recent study shows that Mitochondrial DNA has been used to trace human evolution back to this woman in Africa, whom we named "Eve" Thank you."
Oh the nerve!
Instead, Blogger...I CHOOSE YOU!
Flipping to the daily anecdote section of my life: Congratulations, in the hall of Michelle Chen's most embarrassing moments, there has been yet another addition. For my "What every lawyer, citizen, and business man needs to know about Molecular Biology" class, I had to make a presentation on Mitochondria. Like every other important project in my life, I put it off until the VERY last minute. But also like every other important project in my life, I got it done--minus the sleep, plus the stress, plus the energy/caffeine drinks. So on the big day, I arrive in class, apparently not as early as the professor would have liked her presenters to, only to find out that my beautiful powerpoint presentation, the one with the latest background design from microsoft works.com, the one with the lovely pictures that my professor nagged me to add, the one I skipped class to work on, did not open correctly on her computer. More precisely, it opened as one blank slide. One fucking white slide--in place of my 27 carefully crafted to "please boost my grade" slides. Typical. So typical. Frantically, I rushed over to tell my professor, trying to appear both confused and apologetic at the same time. When it became clear that while I was in class, my presentation was not, I tried to decide between making a dash for the door and breaking down in front of the whole class--both of which by the way, would have been better than what I actually did. So the professor, whose face I am currently trying to paste onto a Voodoo doll, demanded that I talk about Mitochondria anyway, without my powerpoint. There are somethings you should know about me, I am an appalling public speaker. I trip over my own words, I get the facts confused, and I make eye contact with inanimate objects located above or below me. In third grade, we had to pick a biblical story and make a visual of it, I picked the scene where Moses crossed the Red Sea. My mom actually made most of the shoebox art for me, which meant I not only had an animated Moses, but the Red Sea actually parted! I won first place, and for my prize I was taken outside into the hall where I had to speak about my project in front of a video camera. I FROZE. Till this day, my dad has the tape, and maybe even copies of it--of me standing there holding my moses in a shoebox, looking completely dumbfounded. I looked up, I looked down, I even smiled at Moses, but I did not speak....for FIFTEEN WHOLE MINUTES I became mute. I have a history of bad presentations. For my Commercial Chinese class last year, I made a presentation on Maotai liquor. Halfway through, because my Chinese was so broken and I was clearly reading from slides that I couldn't understand, my Chinese professor took pity on me and told the class we were "out of time." Back to biology, back to this alternate reality where professors have been replaced by robot hags who lack feelings, I had no choice but to present Mitochondria without slides. It was every bit as humiliating, it wasn't "better than I had expected" and I expected the worst. I was a nervous wreck, I leaned against the blackboard to support myself in case I fell from the sudden outpour of nervous sweat. I never noticed how dyslexic I could be but at that moment I was, I couldn't even pronounce cytoplasm or Mitochondrial DNA. My notes, if you can even call them that, were supposed to be supplements to my presentation-- at best, they were disorganized and surprisingly contained almost nothing about anything important. I was screwed. I humored the class and the professor for 20 minutes, my TA looked horrified, some kid looked bored, some girls looked sympathetic. Basically I will forever be known as that girl who talked about Mitochondria for 20 minutes yet knew little next to nothing about it. I had to stop, so I said that since I didn't have my slides, I couldn't go on. My professor asked, "well are you finished?" Not exxacctly. I'm thinking about delivering a note to her that goes along the lines of something like this:
Professor Zigmond,
You're kind of a bitch.
Signed,
almost sorry to insult you
Operative word being..ALMOST.
Unfortunately, since I failed her last exam and have now failed my presentation, I have some major ass kissing to do before I can totally write her off and openly hate her. The damage is done and I think every student in that class knows not to pick me as their presentation partners...EVER. To make things worse, the TA was supposed to give a presentation as well that day. Her presentation was on, if you're cynical and always expect the worst you guessed it: Mitochondria. Typical. SOOOOO Typical. Needless to say, her presentation was the presentation that I'll never be able to give, which only made me feel worse.
I never found out what happened to my presentation. I ended up using a VERY rough outline and remaking each slide from that. I sent it to her at 2 in the morning after having labored another 4 hours on Mitochondria, which is now my favorite organelle in the cell. Her response was unappreciative and terse, perhaps I should apply her email style to my presentation.
"The Mitochondria is in the cell, has its own DNA, and has been said to resemble earlier prokaryotes. Recent study shows that Mitochondrial DNA has been used to trace human evolution back to this woman in Africa, whom we named "Eve" Thank you."
Oh the nerve!
posted by Mix at 4:55 PM
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