The past wednesday, April 15th, my
class group and I were assigned to participate in a panel that would be running
in the General Studies by the English Department. In this panel, we had to
present the project that we had made for class a few weeks back on people's
perception of Puerto Rico and Puerto Ricans. Our presentation was titled Caged
Paradise: A Web Based Research.
In this project we viewed and
analysed comments and ads that were posted on the internet by what we
denominated official and unofficial websites. The official websites consisted
of tourism agency pages and more formal web pages, in other hand, the
unofficial websites consisted of social media, yahoo answers, smaller blogs, and
web pages of that matter. My part of the presentation consisted of the comments
posted in social media by people around the world, mostly on Twitter and
Facebook. In this analysis I came to the conclusion that at least in this two
very popular sites people had a positive view of Puerto Rico's beaches and
sceneries, but they had a bad perspective of Puerto Rican's and the criminality
surrounding our island. Overall in our presentation, that was the entire
conclusion based on what people commented on other sites and web pages.
My experience participating in this
panel was very rewarding. In total there were four groups that would be
presenting, and thankfully for me we were the first group to present. I say
thankfully because truly, if other people came before me and gave their
presentations, I would get more and more nervous as time passed by and I'd
think that I wouldn't give a good speech up on stage, but I know that's just my
mind over thinking things. Because we were first, we gave our presentation and I
think I did a pretty good job explaining my part of the project and once I
finished I felt good, like I'd done something right. I'm a dancer, and I love
the feeling I get when I'm up on stage dancing and I know that people are there
to see what is being presented, and I got that same feeling when I present my
work in front of others that are there to see what conclusions I've made, and
to maybe learn something new. It was a truly gratifying experience that
has made my semester a little more interesting.
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| That's me up on stage taking a bow! |
Overall, this was a great experience for me to forget my
nerves and speak about something that I knew what I was talking about. Plus, I
have to admit that my group that gave this presentation with me was awesome,
and we all did a good job. Truly, all four groups presenting were great, but I
wouldn't change my team for any other!
When I was reading this post and reached the part of you comparing the experience to your dancing, I thought about how I felt when I danced a couple years ago! I used to dance ballet and I loved it and because of this I totally understand the resemblance between the panel and dancing a piece!
ReplyDeleteReading this took me back when I used to play at piano recitals back when I was in High School. I really miss that feeling, and I agree with you that it's similar to what we feel talking up in the stage (although for me talking is worse, since my voice starts trembling!)
ReplyDeleteYou're lucky you have a dancing background and that kinda worked to calm your nerves. I'm able to sing in front of dozens of people, but my fear is to actually talk.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was reading this post I liked the analogy that Adriana did with her presentation in class and when she dances in a presentation with public even though this was not the main subject of the post. I have been playing trumpet about six years now and I have the same feeling as Adriana when I play trumpet in public or when I have to do a class presentation. I think that when you perform for an audience it doesn’t matter if it is a presentation for a class, dance, play an instrument or play a sport it will provoke the same feeling if you want to bring a good performance.
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