Kicking off my stand-up career



There I was on the day to give my journal club presentation; I had worked all weekend on my slides and practicing my presentation alone in my room.  I even ran through it one more time outside right before 1pm.  I was feeling as prepared as I could have been, but there were always some thoughts of doubt. What if they don’t understand my paper?  What if I go too long or too short?  What if I just misunderstood everything in my paper? What if they ask questions that I can’t answer?  These questions did not settle the nervous energy but there was a part of me that was excited to share my paper and I wanted to share my excitement about the paper to the class.  I was starting to channel my nerves into an eagerness to present.

Luckily, I was able to present first, and as I stood up in front of the class for an extended period waiting for everyone to settle in, I was starting to become nervous again.  Then Courtney asked me to say a joke, and then I started to relax.  Ironically, I have always had a dream to do stand up at least once in my life and this was my chance.  I immediately said my go-to ‘anti-joke’ and as the class laughed, I regained my confidence and knew I was ready to present. 

Once I saw Noreen nod, I was off to the races. I was kicked into presentation mode and gave the 10-minute presentation almost in a robotic state from all the practice I had done.  I finished the presentation and at that point, I was comfortable and really enjoyed sharing the data from my paper.

My comfortness quickly left me as the questions rolled in and there were some that I could just not answer.  I realized that I should have prepared more for the questions.  I knew my presentation material but beyond the scope of my slides I was not as comfortable and this created a thin layer of ice that I had to stand on.  I made it through the questions and then sat down with a sigh of relief that it was done, but also recognized that the next time I would present I would take more of an effort to practice for the Q and A portion.

Tuesday was definitely an emotional rollercoaster, but I was still able to find the joy of presenting and comfort knowing that if the whole science thing falls through at least I could take up comedy.




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