the tables are now turned

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At first, I acted as a critique and as a guide for the PUP students while they crammed and nervously prepared for their oral thesis presentations scheduled on March 21. All their efforts had paid off: they all showed confidence and were knowledgeable about their studies... they made me proud.

But now, the tables have turned. It was my turn to rush, to cram, to panic, and to get all nervous as the clock happily ticks away the minutes to my presentation. Most of my data are vastly raw at the moment since the instrument got re-commissioned roughly only four weeks ago. I just prepared my slides this week and Melissa and I discussed my talk only on Wednesday; in contrast, Fe and Tita Dory have been discussing the flow of their talks and rehearsing their lines with Melissa since last week.

And finally, my first dry run happened earlier today during journal club hour. My talk has a glaring NEEDS IMPROVEMENT sign over it. Because of this, I feel honoured that my supervisor is doing the critique because she is one big perfectionist. This assures me that come presentation day, my talk will be great and I will be a convincing speaker on my topic.

But before I get to that stage, I still have a lot of growing pains to go through and a lot more rice to eat. Who says I won’t go through what the undergrads went through?!

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