Talk talk talk
Oct. 30th, 2009 10:02 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kyrasantaeWeek 9
Day 16
I went to get coffee a little earlier today because I didn't want to run into anybody. Not to mention that I desperately needed it because I had hardly slept the night before. My own presentation was going to be on Thursday and I had finally checked out some books on Monday to do the required extra research. The building anxiety does really bad things to my sleep.
Our first presenter is the gentleman who had the cafeteria lady incident a few weeks ago. He's a very outspoken and energetic guy, and he kept talking for, I think, almost 40 minutes. When he was finally done, our teacher gets up and starts ranting about keeping things strictly to the time limit and how when she goes to these big conferences she has to present papers in 10 to 15 minutes. (Well, you know, you've already cut us down to 15 from 20-25...)
She then also whines about people making excuses about:
The other presentation was postponed over from last Thursday. Shawn was the guy who selected the article which I wanted to present on but I'm glad I didn't get. It's a seriously long paper (30-ish pages plus maybe another 10 pages of endnotes and references). He barely managed to squeeze it into just under 15 minutes and ended exactly at the end of the period. Since he briefly touched on some stuff I was going to talk about in my presentation, I asked him if he could send me a copy of his slides later in the day so that I could make sure I don't repeat anything that he said, or at least, go into more depth. So he let me borrow his flash drive. I have absolutely zero confidence that his slides would be made available online before Thursday.
The teacher sends us an email in the evening thanking us for "being present" today and telling us what we need to read for the next class. The sending of this email does not coincide with today's presentation slides being posted online.
Day 16.5 (Wednesday)
No slides online yet. I'm glad I borrowed the flash drive from Shawn.
Day 17
I couldn't sleep the two previous nights either. Well, I slept, but it was quite restless. Kept waking at 4AM for some reason before falling asleep again.
The teacher hands out a weird summary page with some quotations on it to review some important theories and some things to consider during the presentations this class. I can't really describe it, so I'll just post a photo of it...if I can find it. Oh, there it is.
The first presentation I couldn't really focus on, I was super-nervous about my own. I have a lot of stuff to cover and I didn't want to go on for too long. I also was worried about drawing too much from my experiences or whether I'd end up speaking too fast, since we're marked on presentation skills too, not just quality of thought.
I had very spartan slides. No pictures, no graphics, no background colours. Just my text. I wanted people to focus on the content, not the candy. My presentation focused on the stereotype of Chinese parents, because that's the part of the "model minority" stereotype that isn't fully seen while practising in the institutional setting. I really had to talk pretty quickly but I think I still managed to clock in at about 18 minutes. Argh. I'm really hoping that she isn't going to significantly penalize me for that.
She then tried to lead the discussion into institutional/structural racism again. I think we've talked enough about it, several classes worth of it. On the other hand, I think that we do need to talk a little bit also about what's actually behind those people who feel that there's a cultural explanation for why Asian parents are the way they are. Fortunately, I think the part of my presentation on Chinese parental expectations of kids raised a lot of questions with the class and so we managed to stick the discussion to the latter.
Urgh.
Mispronunciation of the day:
* "mec-CAN-ism" (you probably see this noted in pencil as a memory aid in the photo of the summary page above.)
As of now (Friday morning), any and all slides from presentations this week are not online. [Edit: Friday afternoon, and they're up now.] I'm also still really really tired.
In other news, I got this hat, and it demands this kind of photo (cartoon character from here):
Day 16
I went to get coffee a little earlier today because I didn't want to run into anybody. Not to mention that I desperately needed it because I had hardly slept the night before. My own presentation was going to be on Thursday and I had finally checked out some books on Monday to do the required extra research. The building anxiety does really bad things to my sleep.
Our first presenter is the gentleman who had the cafeteria lady incident a few weeks ago. He's a very outspoken and energetic guy, and he kept talking for, I think, almost 40 minutes. When he was finally done, our teacher gets up and starts ranting about keeping things strictly to the time limit and how when she goes to these big conferences she has to present papers in 10 to 15 minutes. (Well, you know, you've already cut us down to 15 from 20-25...)
She then also whines about people making excuses about:
- Papers being American-centric,
- Papers being outdated.
- Sometimes a paper might be based on American data but the implications are much broader. Other times the Canadian social dynamic really is different (esp. when it comes to racial demographics).
- A paper may have been done a long time ago but its findings were really significant. On the other hand, old statistical information may reduce the force of the paper's argument on us.
The other presentation was postponed over from last Thursday. Shawn was the guy who selected the article which I wanted to present on but I'm glad I didn't get. It's a seriously long paper (30-ish pages plus maybe another 10 pages of endnotes and references). He barely managed to squeeze it into just under 15 minutes and ended exactly at the end of the period. Since he briefly touched on some stuff I was going to talk about in my presentation, I asked him if he could send me a copy of his slides later in the day so that I could make sure I don't repeat anything that he said, or at least, go into more depth. So he let me borrow his flash drive. I have absolutely zero confidence that his slides would be made available online before Thursday.
The teacher sends us an email in the evening thanking us for "being present" today and telling us what we need to read for the next class. The sending of this email does not coincide with today's presentation slides being posted online.
Day 16.5 (Wednesday)
No slides online yet. I'm glad I borrowed the flash drive from Shawn.
Day 17
I couldn't sleep the two previous nights either. Well, I slept, but it was quite restless. Kept waking at 4AM for some reason before falling asleep again.
The teacher hands out a weird summary page with some quotations on it to review some important theories and some things to consider during the presentations this class. I can't really describe it, so I'll just post a photo of it...if I can find it. Oh, there it is.
The first presentation I couldn't really focus on, I was super-nervous about my own. I have a lot of stuff to cover and I didn't want to go on for too long. I also was worried about drawing too much from my experiences or whether I'd end up speaking too fast, since we're marked on presentation skills too, not just quality of thought.
I had very spartan slides. No pictures, no graphics, no background colours. Just my text. I wanted people to focus on the content, not the candy. My presentation focused on the stereotype of Chinese parents, because that's the part of the "model minority" stereotype that isn't fully seen while practising in the institutional setting. I really had to talk pretty quickly but I think I still managed to clock in at about 18 minutes. Argh. I'm really hoping that she isn't going to significantly penalize me for that.
She then tried to lead the discussion into institutional/structural racism again. I think we've talked enough about it, several classes worth of it. On the other hand, I think that we do need to talk a little bit also about what's actually behind those people who feel that there's a cultural explanation for why Asian parents are the way they are. Fortunately, I think the part of my presentation on Chinese parental expectations of kids raised a lot of questions with the class and so we managed to stick the discussion to the latter.
Urgh.
Mispronunciation of the day:
* "mec-CAN-ism" (you probably see this noted in pencil as a memory aid in the photo of the summary page above.)
As of now (Friday morning), any and all slides from presentations this week are not online. [Edit: Friday afternoon, and they're up now.] I'm also still really really tired.
In other news, I got this hat, and it demands this kind of photo (cartoon character from here):
