0 comment Saturday, May 10, 2014 | admin
Since completing the dreaded dissertation, my attention has focused to preparing my public defense seminar. I have been sooooo burned out on this topic for a while and feeling rather embittered about the whole 4.5 years of my life in 200 pages thing.But you know what? I am *excited* about this talk. I really really like the stuff I work on and it's actually very easy to capture other people's interest with it (even non-scientists). Oh hell, I'm just going let the cat out of the bag here, or maybe just a whisker out of the bag I guess: I work on stuff that has to do with sex* (that's still a pretty broad identifier so whatev). Who doesn't love to talk about sex? I'm really looking forward to giving this seminar because it's to a broad audience - most people know next to nothing about this particular aspect of sex, and even those of us who study it have a LOT more questions than answers. But since I'm giving this talk to a bunch of non-sex-scientists, and my friends and family, and whoever else wanders in off the street, I have to make it relevant to wide range of people.Easy! Tell them about themselves! Crack few jokes, play some videos, show them just how awesome the intricacies that they've never even considered can be. A bit of time on the new stuff I've contributed to our understanding and where the field should go from here, and presto! Forty minutes over before you know it, and everyone hopefully had a good time.I'm sure it will feel a little anti-climactic when it's over, in the sense that 4.5 years of my life can be condensed into 40 minutes, but for now I'm OK with it. It's going to be fun, not just for me but for my audience. Randy Olson, eat your heart out.*A friend informed me last night that the flyer advertising my talk was "kinda pornographic" - HA!
Labels: Unexpected