I’m home.

I have a horrible head cold and intend to spend much of the weekend in bed hopped up on nyquil until I feel better.  This is part of what I hate about traveling….

Every time I get stressed about my adviser’s pushing to succeed, I need to remind myself that he at least won’t let me embarrass myself by presenting something like the 2 papers that preceeded mine in the session.  Yes, he pushes hard.  But my qualitative colleagues who came for moral support could spot some of the methodology problems with these papers.  They were REALLY bad….

Next year I am going to propose a pre-conference session called “Turning your paper into a presentation and delivering it without embarrassing yourself”.  Things we observed that make me think this is necessary:
– Someone put up a word table and scrolled through it
– Someone else put up their presentation in the form of paragraphs on powerpoint slides in 12 point type, then read the slides word for word.
– Some were so scared of powerpoint and an LCD projector (first year – last year the free tool was an overhead projector that you had to bring slides for) that they didn’t bother to bring anything at all and just stood there rambling incoherently.
– Here’s a clue – 15 minutes means that you won’t get through more than 15 slides, no matter HOW FAST YOU TALK.  I hit my mark exactly with 10 content slides.  Less is more, people…..

I’m a good presenter.  Not a great presenter, but a good one.  But that makes me a rock star among academics.  I swear, I could make a fortune teaching this stuff…..

OK – Lots to talk about regarding decisions I made, but not tonight.  The nyquil is starting to kick in….