Be Prepared

I received some funding over the past year to help pay for some of my research. The people that gave me the money hold an annual research forum, and require anyone who received money from them to report their data at it in order to be eligible for future funding. I gave my talk today.

I worked on my talk over spring break, and intended to put the finishing touches on it earlier this week so that I would have plenty of time to practice it. That didn't happen. I had other things come up instead, so I found myself working on it last night, trying to figure out exactly what I wanted to say for each slide. I finished that part, but never gave it a practice run to make sure it all fit within the allotted time (12 minutes).

Needless to say, this morning I was a little nervous about giving a talk I'd never practiced before, but I was in the first session so had run out of time for tinkering anyway. I usually don't take these things too seriously (it's not a real meeting after all), but still prefer to have at least given one practice talk, even if it's only to myself. It helps me to get rid of the feeling of being unprepared.

Then the timekeeper walked in, introduced herself, and asked if anybody had a watch. I felt much better.