Crushed by a cartwheel

I'm getting nervous about the presentation. One week away. I finished writing the powerpoint slides at around 1 am last night. Now I need to write notes or something to flesh it out.

I know that many presenters read straight from a paper in front of them. It won't make for a memorable presentation, but suffices to get your point across. People won't shoot you down for doing that. I wish I could do it like that, it would be so much easier, though perhaps a little dull for the listeners.

The problem is, I find it very hard to read when I'm giving a presentation. I may see the words on the paper, but what my eyes register are some weird scriblings on a white surface. Their meaning never reaches their destination.

There's really no other option for me but to know my subject so well that I can improvise, and hope that I remember to say everything important and in a logical order. What a great way to go about it, seeing that there are millions of other things causing me to be nervous in that situation.

According to my calculations, I've given about five presentations in my whole life. None were longer than 10 minutes. Now I have to go on for 30 minutes! I wake up around 5 am every morning in cold sweat because I've been imagining in my sleep how horrible it could be. Not only am I dreading being in front of an audience (with luck though, most will leave when it's my turn), but I'm very insecure about my topic.

Whatever happened to my self-confidence in my research? Only a year ago, I was so sure I knew what I was talking about. Now I question every single statement I write down. What if there's some elementary error in my thinking? What if there's an asshole in the audience to point that out?

I still don't trust people to be civil about it. I still expect them to mock me in every possible way they can think of. I'd probably crumble even if someone simply asked me to speak louder or more clearly, though perfectly understandable requests as such and nothing to fret about.

I hate it how in such situations I seem to regress back to a 15-year-old with a crushed self-esteem. I simply can't help myself, it's a gut reaction and I wonder if it'll ever completely go away. In my opinion, it's long due for me to move on from that. I wish I knew how.

All things equal though, I do look forward to seeing Münich, learning more about historical linguistics, and with any luck getting feedback for my topic.

When I come back, a cousin of mine will pay me a visit because she still hasn't found an apartment in Tampere. Will be nice, I see her so rarely. She's starting studies again, even though she just graduated as MA in the spring. She sure does enjoy the student life.

All this means that I probably won't update in about a week or so.