Three Minute Thesis Competition

I may have mentioned in a previous post that the department competition for the the 3MT was about two weeks ago now.  Well I and another guy represented the Foreign Languages department at the college level.  There are four colleges at my university, the College of Arts and Sciences, the College of Business, the College of Education, and the College of Nursing.  So today was the Three Minute Thesis competition at the college level to see who would be the representative for the College of Arts and Sciences at the University level of the competition.  There were 18 people presenting, and there were some really awesome presentations.  My goal was to do the best that I could.  I had been working on this for awhile and I had been practicing in front of my professor, boyfriend, and basically anyone who would listen.  I even practiced while I was doing my hair and make-up some mornings.  But I knew that if I got up there and gave it my best shot I at least would be proud of myself for making it this far.  And I did, I got up there and presented in front of faculty and students.  I was pretty nervous, I started shaking when I put on my eyeliner, its a miracle I got it on straight, and I didn't stop shaking until the last presentation was over.  After it was over I figured I had a pretty good shot of being in the top three, I felt pretty confident.  I knew I was loud enough, I was under the time limit and I didn't have any major mess ups during my presentation.  I had done exactly what I set out to do.  And then they announced the results...I won!!!  I was so excited, still am actually!  I don't win a lot of things, even though I can be horribly competitive sometimes, and it was just really nice that all my hard work had paid off.  And when I say there were some good presentations, I'm not being just being nice, there really were some interesting presentations and I can say that I learned some cool stuff today.  Its fun to see how diverse the College of Arts and Sciences is and there were presentations on everything from music to chemistry.  I'm really excited to be representing the College of Arts and Sciences in the final level of the competition.  But trust me I'm not going to stop working on my presentation.  I think I changed around the sentence order  right before I got up to present today, that's how OCD I'm being about this presentation.  So Research Day here I come! Gonna make my department proud, because trust me my advisor has been working just as hard on this as I have.  I personally wouldn't want to proof read my first draft of this research paper.  But then again I'm beginning to think she might be a little bit of a saint.  So good luck and best wishes, and if your spring break is this next week, have fun!

Update on the Crazy

So my first draft has been turned it.  I have been so stressed about this paper that I had a dream (after I turned it in, mind you) that my advisor for this project thought I plagiarized and she threw me in jail.  That's how stressed I have been.  And no I did not plagiarize, this paper is all mine, it may be ugly and there may be comma splices but its my little monster, all mine.  I don't know if I should say it like that, I sound like Gollum and his precious, but I can tell you that's a pretty good analogy of my relationship with this paper.  I hate it and love it at the same time and its driving me crazy.  Oh well, now all I have to do is present at Research Day which is April 9th and compete in the college heat for 3MT next Thursday March 20th.  I'm almost done and I can't wait to be finished!  I am tired and exhausted and I didn't know I could drink that much coffee.  I hope all is going well for you and I'll be posting more about my research later, when I can actually stand to think about it again.  Best wishes and good luck.

Three Minute Thesis and Procrastination

My university hosts annual Research Day and this year they are adding a new component, a competition called Three Minute Thesis.  This competition was developed by the University of Queensland, and it challenges students to present their research in three minutes or less.  And they must present to an audience that has no idea what the presenter is talking about, so they basically have to start scratch.  Here is one of my favorite videos.  This girl is amazingly smart and her presentation  is wonderful.  I hope you all will enjoy this as much as I did.







For more information you can go to the Three Minute Thesis website: http://threeminutethesis.org/

I have to give my first presentation at the department level tomorrow.  Which is rather nerve racking but I'm also excited.



Right now the Oscars are on so I'm taking a break from my first draft of my paper which is due this Friday.  It's supposed to be 15-17 pages long.  Currently I have half a first paragraph and a three page long works cited.  Which I am really hoping my advisor will count into my total page count.  But I'm not going to bet on that, my luck isn't that good.  I'm not exactly sure how I'm going to manage to present my Three Minute Thesis, do homework, work out, eat and sleep.  I'm thinking the sleep is gonna go out the window.  I apologize this post is mostly documenting the process of getting through a week of Capstone requirements.  I wouldn't wish this on anyone.  It's funny I remember being a freshman and listening to all the seniors complaining about their capstone projects and now I understand.  I apologize for the scattered nature of this post. But that seems to the theme of my life right now.  So if you feel called to send me good thoughts, prayers, light, vibes or juju please feel free I could use as much support as I can get.  Thanks again for your patience with me this evening.  Best wishes and Good luck!