apss '09 (iv)

7.1. my actual talk is on wednesday afternoon, by which time i'm so calm it's a little bit frightening. the first time i had to do this i went through most of the conference in a sort of a dissociative state; it's heartening to know that my habituation curve to the anxiety of public speaking is rather sharper than for, say, the curve for seeing therapy clients, something which i'm still not 100% comfortable doing even after a year.

7.2. matt walker is chair of the session, which is like, the biggest adrenaline rush since six flags magic mountain, 1995.

7.3.1. the first speaker who gets up acts as if it's her first time giving any talk, anywhere. seriously, it's like show-and-tell in kindergarten, where you have the grasshopper from the backyard bouncing around in an empty gerber's baby food jar.

7.3.1. it also goes on way overtime. by the time she gets done, there's like, 8.5 seconds left for questions

7.3.2. and then this guy comes up and starts ripping everything she's said to shreds, like, point by point, and every time you think it's going to end, he keeps going on and on and on. it's quite possibly one of the most fantastic things i've ever seen. she stands there, trying desperately to get a word in edgewise to defend herself, and he's just going on and on and pretty soon they're just balls out screaming at each other, and matt's like, settle down, and it just about devolves into a complete melee.

7.3.3. these are the moments you live for.

7.3.4. when it comes to my turn, i practice, for the first time, actually giving a talk instead of just saying the words, which is really all i've been able to do till now. powerpoint is such a crutch. i need to work on having slides with no words at all on them. that would be awesome