I had a meeting today with Clare about the review panel presentation. We looked at the powerpoint I have prepared and she thought it was quite good. I have quite a few slides in and need to keep in mind that the presentation is 15 minutes only. When I tried it out in front of her i managed to go through it within time. … Read more »

After having submitted the text documents for the review panel coming up next week, i am now working on preparing a powerpoint presentation. I need to decide what to include and what not, how to structure in so that i can give a comprehensive overview of the research. William is going away to SPR in the US so i wont have the chance for more feedback from him until the day before the panel. But, i can have some peer feedback, maybe meet up with Cormac and talk about our presenations, he is preparing one as well. I generally dont feel anxious to stand up and make a presentation, this one maybe makes me a bit more nervous that usual because i am supposed to ‘defend’ my research plan. I am also working on the presentation for the conference on 3rd July, i could probably do similar readings for both of those presentations. Let’s see how the week goes ahead, am trying not to stress myself too much.

After quite a stressful period of time, i handed in my portfolio for the review panel coming up. Now i need to prepare my powerpoint presentation and do some back-up reading for the day…more at my pace though. I wrote an email to Colin the other day (when things were still seeming daunting with laptop breakdown and a lot of work to do) and in that email i wrote sth that i want to cultivate more:

“stress is part of being alive. I seem to be becoming more stoic and  to be taming myself
against the ‘disasters’…maybe there seems to be a shift, as if am becoming more accepting and tolerant of the chaos.”

I seem to have moved from enthusiastic (idealistic) to cynical and now to stoic….(too many Greeks around once again!)

Firday is the submission for the review panel proposal and other documents. I am working a  lot the past few weeks but feeling quite stressed, especially cause my laptop broke down just now that i need it the most. This means that i shall work in the library etc (out of home anyway which makes my everydayness very tiring). I am also frustrated that i do not have access to all my files so this makes me more stressed out. Anyway, i cant do anything about it and moaning will just waste my precious time and distract me from working with the rapid and focused pace needed right now.

 The more I read, the more i discover but feel that i shall leave the proposal as it is and focus on how to best defend my ideas, whilst being open to the panel’s feedback/contributions that will bring improvements to the whole project. I keep going for now, hope that my laptop can get repaired soon…i need it!

I am aware of the fact that I was ‘processing’ the problems with the research proposal during the night,in my sleep…it was anxious sleep, couldnt find solutions or make sense of things. As I was waking up this morning, i remember ‘asking the unconscious’ sort of thing to give me a solution and the word that came to mind was the ancient Greek name “Antigoni”… … Read more »