Conflict...

I have a departmental presentation today. After obtaining a Masters degree and then another one, I still do not believe I have conquered the fear of public speaking. My natural instinct is to become as vague and aloof as possible. I have been told that I seem disinterested in my project. Well, it's not far from the bullseye semantically because I am disinterested in presenting about my project. A distinction with a difference. However, it is par for the course and a necessary skill for our 'trade' - the business of doing science and sharing it with all of your colleagues. Sigh. I do hope that today's presentation goes well so that I may board my plane to Tampa (more in a later post) with peace of mind. However, I seriously doubt that outcome since it is standard procedure to walk away with more questions (asked by the audience or in response to one of their inquiries). C'est la vie. I am grateful for these opportunities of practice before the GRAND presentation to display my thesis work (my blood, gut, and life for the past 5 years) for criticism and judgement by the world (or whomever decides to come to the open forum). Back to final lookover and then off to practice judgement day!

Wow.

So, it's been almost a full year since my last post. How did that happen? I have no idea. I read over the posts from last year and was reminded of how much I enjoyed writing about my random strings of thoughts. Now why did I stop? I believe it was school, work, holidays, more work, and even more work. It's ironic because it's precisely because of 'more work' that I now find myself back in my blog - I'm procrastinating! Well, only for a few minutes because I really must begin work on this presentation. Anyway, it has been really nice here weather-wise for the past few days and the forecast says there will be many more to come - yay!

Oh, one other thing that has been keeping me busy in addition to the normal work is the studying schedule of my husband. For the boards, he stopped tv watching, bar going, beer drinking, and friends socializing. I am really proud of him. Also, to take advantage of this block of non-extracurricular activity period, I decided to put in more hours at the lab - if not now, when? However, there was one issue - he used to do majority of the cooking. Thus, serendipitously, I find out that I am a pretty decent amateur cook when I took it upon myself to feed us in the past 6 months. The meal repertoire became repetitive at times but the next week I would look for new produce at the public market or or good ol' wegmans. Although my husband doesn't eat sweets, I also started baking and quite enjoy it - definitely enjoy the fruits of my labor! Cookies!

Speaking of cookies reminds me of another new adventure I've engaged in the past few weeks - learning to swim. Yes, I am a 29 year old learning to swim - first holding my breaths, then the kicking, next is floating and kicking, and lastly floating, kicking, and exchanging breaths. That's all it is, right? Well, technically yes. However, I seem to have difficulty adjusting to the change in water pressure in my ear. I've been going about once a week (that may be a problem in itself) and it takes me about 20 minutes to acclimate to the water temp and pressure. By then, I have about 15-20 minutes left to practice before the pool closes. I do hope I can improve my newly acquired aquatic skills this summer. However, this summer we are not planning on any beach vacations so I will not be able to test this new skill in the Atlantic Ocean (probably a good thing!).

Ok, dinner and work calls.

Until next time...