Public praise...it does the ego good??

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7/15/09:

Hamjambo everyone, hope all is well.

Today was a good day. I had my presentation, so I dressed up a bit (Mom, the skirt we bought from H and M looked so cute!!). I've been a bit confused by some of the presentations so far...mostly for two reasons: 1. people have been SITTING at the table and 2. People have been reading directly off slides!! Now maybe it's just me, but I'm fairly confident that most of my professors in college would NOT have been very happy with a student who both sat down, and read directly from their slides when giving a presentation. I know this isn't the most formal setting, but how are you going to get good at formal presentations if you don't practice?? Needless to say, I had my slides pretty well memorized and I stood and preferred to walk around a bit, you know, be animated because I was actually so interested in the NGO I selected. I also love public speaking, so presenting doesn't make me nervous..it actually gives me an adrenalin rush. Maybe that means I'd make a good lawyer...?

Anyhow, I guess my power point / presentation was good because kids had lots of questions after wards, and after most of the previous presentations everyone was just looking glazed over and bored. So after students asked questions, which I must say I handled well seeing as how I never had the opportunity to ask Mr. Kinsey ANY of the questions on my list (I didn't elaborate yesterday and I can't because it makes me angry, but long story short he magically no longer felt comfortable talking to me about Heifer because he doesn't work there anymore. It would have been nice to express that concern over the phone the first time we spoke instead of saying, "oh yeah sure, I'd be happy to answer questions."), but then Sipho started to speak and I got worried; he's raked a few people over the coals after their presentations for not addressing certain issues enough, or not focusing enough on capacity building. I really thought I had focused in on capacity building, mostly because I felt that Heifer Int'l has such a complete, thorough approach. Anyhow, instead of critiquing or asking questions, Sipho actually praised my presentation. He said it was the best so far, very professional, very thorough and answered all the questions he had. Then he goes, "I think for the first time in seven years, I'm going to have change my grading scale for students because you just upped it." I felt so embarrassed...I don't like public praise. But no one can say that it doesn't feel good to get some validation on hard work.

I was just emailing my mother and telling her how sometimes I worry that I'm not really smart...I worry that maybe UT wasn't challenging enough (well, save for Dr. Beckman's and Dr. Piper's classes, and Dr. Hilaire), I worry that I won't be able to do law school and grad school, that I won't get into NYU...I don't know, it's kind of this weird, unexplainable feeling. But my mom was able to sum it up well: "You're very much like me. I never considered myself innately smart in that really intellectual, academic way but I have always worked hard and learned my way around fast. But, as I get older, I realize that ALL of that is smart. So, do not under-estimate your talents. I would take an average intelligence, hard worker anytime over a smarty-pants with average work ethic." So yes, I would also rather be the humble, hard worker than the in your face intellect. I think the most important part about that statement though is being humble...which I hope I am and can continue to be. What's the point in trying to be a Buddhist if you rub your successes in the faces of others? That's nothing but ego perpetuation. I'll hope to be humble if I end up getting into NYU and if it doesn't happen this time around, then I'll just buck up and study for the LSATS this next year, apply to law school, and then grad school again after a year. But who knows, get back to me in a few weeks though once I've had my NYU decision, then we'll see how Buddhist I am!! 😊 Moral of the story is: I'm happy and humbled to have gotten such good feedback, and I hope the rest of the students who present this week will do just as well. And I'll be happy to help them with their presentations if they ask for it.

The rest of the day was quite relaxing, just read my book, took a little nap, worked out and had a delicious dinner. They made a sort of pasta primavera and then we had strawberry ice cream for dessert. Since then I've just been hanging out on the interwebs, blogging and facebooking. I'd rather be blogging and such than sitting around watching TV...we don't have cable in our room, so I think it's good that I haven't been watching as much TV as I do at home. Though I do miss True Blood and So You Think You Can Dance!! Mom, I hope you've remembered to DVR everything for me 😊

Time for bed soon...
Goodnight all, have a great day!
<3<3<3

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Comments

[Sam]

oh you HAVE to watch So You Think You Can Dance when you get home. I'll watch the whole season again with you, for real! From the top twenty on there's some amazing performances...especially by Kupono, the gorgeous Hawaiin guy...wait til you see some of his numbers.