Thursday, while I was giving an extensive and rather confusing presentation in class regarding the discovery of the first ribozyme, I kept blanking out regarding whatever-the-hell-I-was-hoping-to-say-next. As is usual for this situation, I panicked and, rather than biting my tongue, blathered my way to the next slide:
"Well, I kinda forgot what I was going to say... this went better when I practiced in front of my cat..."
It happened a few more times:
"Well, in light of moving on to the next slide, I'll ask if anyone has any questions as a stalling tactic until I remember what comes next."
"While this experiment was relatively complex, I'd like to think the next one was simpler... if only I could remember..."
Then, I came to a point of real confusion. My mind broke down and abandoned me entirely. In a split second, I thought, "I'm screwed. I'm really screwed. Sure, I'd been able to talk my way out of the other gaps... hell, A [professor] even laughed at those... and I was able to recover. Not this time... And this presentation is most of my grade for the class. Sh*t. I might as well give up. Only a miracle would save me now."
And then the projector spontaneously shut off. It took five minutes to restart, giving me time to run through the rest of the presentation.
I'm now a deeply religious individual.
Posted by James at February 18, 2006 07:34 PM