Chronicles of the Confused

A moment of wallowing

Today, I had one of the worst presentations of my 25 years on the planet. Everything (well almost) that could have gone wrong, did. However, I have done my 30 minutes of wallowing have decided to turn this moment of despair into a moment of reflection; and hopefully learn something as to not repeat this in the future and be a cautionary tale for others. You know when parents warn you of what happened to your distant black sheep of a cousin three times removed. I will take on the role of black sheep cousin.

The situation

A little bit about me: I’m a Biostatistics PhD student, currently investigating molecular markers for asthma. As part of my program, I have bimonthly meetings with external scientists. A couple of weeks ago I was asked to present my current research to the external research team.

The events that led up to the major event

I have always been a little haphazard and unfortunately my mini mental tornado had materialised into a real thing. It started off with spilling water onto my barely functioning laptop. The liquid has caused some issues with my mouse where it has momentary spasms which I can’t control; leading to the slides skipping ahead three times during the presentation! In addition, as my laptop seems to be on its last leg, I had to submit a lot of my work to a high performing computing (HPC) machine however my work was in a queue for four days which limited the amount of time I had left to construct my presentation. However, there was still a lot of poor planning on my part as in the space of 2 weeks I binge watched 5 newly released seasons.

I think this was the first time I really felt the pie in my face as I muttered and mumbled through my work. I had rushed everything and was functioning on around 3 hours of sleep as I had to run part of my analysis on my barely functioning laptop.

The aftermath

My supervisor’s words are still fresh in my mind, ‘I think you left it a little too late this time.’ It led me to be slightly more aggressive than usual but that’s what happens when the wounds of embarrassment are still fresh and the proverbial whipped cream is dripping from your face. Today was a day I was truly humbled.

A moment of reflection

This moment has led me to re-evaluate my current situation. There a few things I have noted to avoid this in the future.

Firstly, I tend to over commit.

Disorganization + Overcommitment = Pie in the face.

I am involved in several extra-curricular activities that cause me not to commit as much time to my degree as I should. Granted I had written the scripts, sent it to the HPC and started preparing my slides but what would have taken my presentation to the next level would have been a little more thought in my story and some time tidying up. However, my mind is split across so many things that I don’t have the resources to allocate to the most important. Therefore, I need to drop a few of my commitments and prioritise PhD.

I need to hammer down on the foundation of my understanding. At the moment, my house is built on sand and so easily shaken. Although I am doing a PhD in biostatistics, my understanding of model pipelines, mathematics underlying each and programming is severely lacking. I missed a lot of slides in my presentation detailing my work because I just didn’t understand the algorithms I was using. Therefore, once I drop a few of my other commitments, I will allocate this extra time to strengthening my foundation and building my confidence.

I need to work on communication, need to improve presenting skills and learn how to tell a data story. That can be improved with more practice and being prompt with my slides to discuss with my supervisor. I should make time for two run throughs before the real things.

Finally, I need to get a new laptop and cancel my Netflix.

Life is an undulating experience, and we shouldn’t let one trough define us. We are temporal beings; and so, we change. Just like the stock market goes up and down but overall is rising, as long we work on improving our weaknesses, we can do the same.