This week I got called up to the majors, so to speak. A national parent group asked my supervisor (I need to come up with a fun alias for him - working on it...) to give a talk at their annual meeting in October. He is often asked to give talks like this and I would say that 80% of the time he accepts. This is actually one of the things I like best about him. He feels that since the public funds the majority of his research he should give something back to the public. And because the research that he does has practical applications to many groups - parents, teachers, government - this means giving talks not only at academic conferences but also at annual parent and teacher meetings, etc. Part of the reason I'm working with him is to learn how to do more practical research, and I'd really like to do a better job of translating my results into something that might actually be useful to a non-academic.
Well, it turns out that he is going to be away somewhere else the weekend of the conference (he's basically going to be away for the entire month of October) and so he asked me if I might like to give the talk. Thankfully he made this request via e-mail, so he did not see the blind panic on my face in reaction to this. This is a 90 minute talk, given twice in a row, that touches on a politically charged issue. I was hoping to work my way up to that - maybe watch him give a similar talk, then give one together with and/or one of my other labmates, and then maybe fly solo. Nope - I'm jumping into the deep end. I suppose I could have said no, but that seemed like a bad idea. Oh, and it's three days before I leave for Wales to give my first ever talk at an academic conference. Eek!
I know that this is what I am supposed to be aiming for - the "big time". I should be excited to be giving talks like this. And half of me is happy, and flattered that he thinks this is something I can do. But the other half of me is freakin' out just a little bit. This is a good thing though - I just need to keep reminding myself of that.
me and julio
3 comments:
you are my model grown-up. yay!
gracious...this place needs dusting! achoooOOOOO!
wow....i was told that the blogger who maintains this site might be giving it another chance.
i'm sorely disappointed to see that the cobwebs remain.
well i must be going before my dust allergy kicks in.
ta ta!
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