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Sunday, February 08, 2004

I am sorry that I have not written until now. My presentation went alright. I was two minutes under the twenty minute mark. But I want to talk about what happened on Thursday. I had to go out and get a new belt since it seems that I forgot my belt and dress shoes back at home. In fact, I have dress socks but no dress shoes to go with it! Anyway, my friend and I went down to the charity shops to see if we could find one but they did not have any. We then hit the bargain clothing stores but they did not have any either. So we made our way down to Princes street where all the expensive stores are. It had been raining slightly but when we were on North Bridge the lightening started over downtown. With each successive lightning strike, the rain became harder. I was not worried but then when we were on Princes street itself, the lightening hit a third time and it began to hail. This was not the kind of hail that hurt when it hit you. This kind penetrated your clothing when it hit you. It was completely soaking wet by the time we ran across four lanes of traffic and hid in the eve of McDonald's. We finally made it down to Mark and Spencers. I got a belt for 12 pounds!!! That hurt. I was told that clothing was expensive here but that was horrible.

Anyway, the next day I did a run through with the other members of the group that was going with me. I then waited the torturous wait until my time came. My mouth was dry when I started and then I started talking fast. My supervisor wanted to be there but asked at the last minute for us to change things but we were completely set by then. Thankfully, my other supervisor could not make it either. I would have been too nervous. After I gave my talk, my instructor from the writing class had some really brutal questions for me. I handled it pretty well. Then she started critiquing my prensentation style. That was below the belt and I will have to let her know. We had invited all sorts of people from outside the department and they wanted us to put this together like it was a real conference. She should have talked to us in private or at least with only people who were giving presentations. Anyway, since my title was really "sexy" and I reacted so vigorously against that why I did it. I was able to give some back to her at this point. I told her that it was a reaction to her pressing so strongly for a "sexy" title. She turned red and nearly jumped out of her seat. The very amusing instructor from Scottish Studies just put his hands behind his head and started to smile. Just after I gave my talk my supervisor came in. The other student being supervised by him told me I lucked out.

Anyway, that was my experience in a nutshell. It sucked away more than a week of my time that could have been more usefully spent doing the work assigned to me that carries more weight. I tried to make up for that by spending five hours in the current journal section in the library trying to get caught up in more recent scholarship on Irish Law. I am not quiet done. I wanted to get at least five years back for each journal and Speculum comes out four times a year, although, it is mostly book reviews now rather than actual articles. In any case, it is late and I want to get to bed.


posted by Chris  #12:10 AM | 0 comments |