Thursday, March 12, 2009
The last presentation of my Uni years...
2 presentations this week.. and basically, they mark the last presentations of my uni life. The last presentation delivering to my profs, my classmates and nt forgetting the exciting Q&A sessions. Actually, given the daunting deadlines for all the term papers looming altogether this point of time, I din't realize about the last presentation until a group mate voiced it out.
And you feel a mixed feeling. Abit of excitement, gasping, sadness and nostalgic. A little bit of everything, a moment to remember. To write it down somewhere. Once that moment is gone, it would be another one of those sweet memories that you tot of once in a while. And you know how it would put a smile on your face.
I've been exposed to and doing public speaking even before I got into primary school.
We do it for.. competition, for performance, for sch projects and what have you.
What do you hope to achieve or what do you want your listeners to take away after you have said your piece? Or do you just intend to finish your part of the presentation and past it to your peers, hoping that the listeners did not catch you stammering or the little piece of paper on your hand shaking uncontrollably? We have all kinds of presenters, isn't it? :)
How many presenters can make an impact on their listeners? If you remember the presenter, what do you remember him or her for?
I don't know what others will remember me for, if they do.
But this is what I want to remember before I forgot about it:
When I was a little girl, I spoke before the audiences to tell them my story. Not life story, I mean.. I am just a small girl. But.. it was the little stories that happened to me that I wanted to share with them. Who is my best friend.. how many sibling i have... whats my happiest day of my life.. my sad day..
And my audiences enjoyed it. I knew they would listen and like it because the feelings and stories I tell them, I tell them from the bottom of my heart.
Then as we grow up, we give presentations on academic work. Not about ourselves. Not telling other people about our stories and feelings. But that doesn't mean that people only listen to the academic work and don't know anything about you. With the changing nature of presentation in our schooling years, where we got busy having project meetings and preparation for presentations, sometimes, we forgot about the tinge of happiness or things we hope to share with others like how we used to do when we were young. It's easy to forget. Especially when you do presentations so frequently.
But what you have learnt from your research, what you want to share with other people and the little agencies you have as the presenter to tell your audience something you feel is important. And the little nods and smile of appreciation that you get from them, sometimes unexpected laughters because of your little antics here and there.. your little expressions... I always enjoy these moments. Cos you enjoy your own presentations just like how they enjoy it. Its a 2 way thing. What do you look out for in the presenter? For me, the confidence and stage presence is one thing, but the way a person presents or talk about things tells me sth about him/her. I don't like cocky presenters, overconfident presenters.. I like confident, not self-assuming speaker who can strike a chord with me.. some form of connection. How about you?
Alrighty.. its gettin late.. and i need to sleep and give my last presentation of my uni life in a few hours time.. so.. goodnite.
And this is a grp photo of our last presentation that we have placed in our last slide of our presentation.. :)
Thank you :)
*take a bow*
2 presentations this week.. and basically, they mark the last presentations of my uni life. The last presentation delivering to my profs, my classmates and nt forgetting the exciting Q&A sessions. Actually, given the daunting deadlines for all the term papers looming altogether this point of time, I din't realize about the last presentation until a group mate voiced it out.
And you feel a mixed feeling. Abit of excitement, gasping, sadness and nostalgic. A little bit of everything, a moment to remember. To write it down somewhere. Once that moment is gone, it would be another one of those sweet memories that you tot of once in a while. And you know how it would put a smile on your face.
I've been exposed to and doing public speaking even before I got into primary school.
We do it for.. competition, for performance, for sch projects and what have you.
What do you hope to achieve or what do you want your listeners to take away after you have said your piece? Or do you just intend to finish your part of the presentation and past it to your peers, hoping that the listeners did not catch you stammering or the little piece of paper on your hand shaking uncontrollably? We have all kinds of presenters, isn't it? :)
How many presenters can make an impact on their listeners? If you remember the presenter, what do you remember him or her for?
I don't know what others will remember me for, if they do.
But this is what I want to remember before I forgot about it:
When I was a little girl, I spoke before the audiences to tell them my story. Not life story, I mean.. I am just a small girl. But.. it was the little stories that happened to me that I wanted to share with them. Who is my best friend.. how many sibling i have... whats my happiest day of my life.. my sad day..
And my audiences enjoyed it. I knew they would listen and like it because the feelings and stories I tell them, I tell them from the bottom of my heart.
Then as we grow up, we give presentations on academic work. Not about ourselves. Not telling other people about our stories and feelings. But that doesn't mean that people only listen to the academic work and don't know anything about you. With the changing nature of presentation in our schooling years, where we got busy having project meetings and preparation for presentations, sometimes, we forgot about the tinge of happiness or things we hope to share with others like how we used to do when we were young. It's easy to forget. Especially when you do presentations so frequently.
But what you have learnt from your research, what you want to share with other people and the little agencies you have as the presenter to tell your audience something you feel is important. And the little nods and smile of appreciation that you get from them, sometimes unexpected laughters because of your little antics here and there.. your little expressions... I always enjoy these moments. Cos you enjoy your own presentations just like how they enjoy it. Its a 2 way thing. What do you look out for in the presenter? For me, the confidence and stage presence is one thing, but the way a person presents or talk about things tells me sth about him/her. I don't like cocky presenters, overconfident presenters.. I like confident, not self-assuming speaker who can strike a chord with me.. some form of connection. How about you?
Alrighty.. its gettin late.. and i need to sleep and give my last presentation of my uni life in a few hours time.. so.. goodnite.
And this is a grp photo of our last presentation that we have placed in our last slide of our presentation.. :)
Thank you :)
*take a bow*
Sunday, March 01, 2009
The last term break...
So, here I am.. blogging about my last term break, which lasted for erm.. a week.
So what have I done for this week? Quite a number of things .. but not for sch work. HAHAHA... oh well.. hey.. its my last break ok!!
A few things worth mentioning...
I watched a play staged by the social work hons cohort. Frankly speaking, it is quite a good effort and I was quite moved by the team work and joint memories that they have created for themselves. Of cos, you cant judge it with professional plays but i think they have all done a good job and its worth a good round of applause. Its nice that i didn't think too much or too in-depth while watching the play like how i alwys do. Just relax, appreciate their effort and congratulate them for the good team effort. A great initiative and many years down the road, I'm sure they will remember how proud they are to be the social work hons cohort in 2009. Sweet, isn't it? :)
I watched "Slumdog Milionaire". And was moved by the little details, realism and human spirits that triumphed despite adversities. The montages, the artistic capturing of human lives and conditions were nice and thought-provoking. The kind of environment that they are living in, the temperament of a character and why he or she react in a certain way... both heart-wrenching yet with a tinge of envy in some ways. And its hard to explain.
The controversies that comes along after it was shot to fame. The scrutiny.. whether justifiable or uncalled for are just part of the price for the fame.
And that's reality. It's not merely about acting.. not merely about directing a film. It's a whole load of complications bugging you. Some learn to deal with the complications fairly well. Some totally give up trying to explain things to other people. After a while, some might even forgot the initial passion for acting out somebody's story... for directing a story ... to tell the world a story.
The initial dream and passion... the romanticized dream and passion.
Those who manage to understand them all, still with that burning passion at the end of the day, find the purpose in what they have been doing all this while :)
Memories of the documentary "Born into Brothels" kept appearing in my mind at one point of time while watching "Slumdog". Another good documentary to look out for :)
Last but not least, I received an sms stating that my literary writing has been chosen for the final round of selection for an international competition. some 国际华文散文创作比赛. No matter what, my work will most probably be published in a book. That's what the person-in-charge told me. And it's pretty funny, tt uncle (person-in-charge) asked me the very first thing when we talked on the phone, "你是不是参加xxx唱歌比赛的？我有去看你唱歌表演的。。"
hahahah... uncle, I've retired quite some time ago.
hahah.. ;)
So, here I am.. blogging about my last term break, which lasted for erm.. a week.
So what have I done for this week? Quite a number of things .. but not for sch work. HAHAHA... oh well.. hey.. its my last break ok!!
A few things worth mentioning...
I watched a play staged by the social work hons cohort. Frankly speaking, it is quite a good effort and I was quite moved by the team work and joint memories that they have created for themselves. Of cos, you cant judge it with professional plays but i think they have all done a good job and its worth a good round of applause. Its nice that i didn't think too much or too in-depth while watching the play like how i alwys do. Just relax, appreciate their effort and congratulate them for the good team effort. A great initiative and many years down the road, I'm sure they will remember how proud they are to be the social work hons cohort in 2009. Sweet, isn't it? :)
I watched "Slumdog Milionaire". And was moved by the little details, realism and human spirits that triumphed despite adversities. The montages, the artistic capturing of human lives and conditions were nice and thought-provoking. The kind of environment that they are living in, the temperament of a character and why he or she react in a certain way... both heart-wrenching yet with a tinge of envy in some ways. And its hard to explain.
The controversies that comes along after it was shot to fame. The scrutiny.. whether justifiable or uncalled for are just part of the price for the fame.And that's reality. It's not merely about acting.. not merely about directing a film. It's a whole load of complications bugging you. Some learn to deal with the complications fairly well. Some totally give up trying to explain things to other people. After a while, some might even forgot the initial passion for acting out somebody's story... for directing a story ... to tell the world a story.
The initial dream and passion... the romanticized dream and passion.
Those who manage to understand them all, still with that burning passion at the end of the day, find the purpose in what they have been doing all this while :)
Memories of the documentary "Born into Brothels" kept appearing in my mind at one point of time while watching "Slumdog". Another good documentary to look out for :)
Last but not least, I received an sms stating that my literary writing has been chosen for the final round of selection for an international competition. some 国际华文散文创作比赛. No matter what, my work will most probably be published in a book. That's what the person-in-charge told me. And it's pretty funny, tt uncle (person-in-charge) asked me the very first thing when we talked on the phone, "你是不是参加xxx唱歌比赛的？我有去看你唱歌表演的。。"
hahahah... uncle, I've retired quite some time ago.
hahah.. ;)