NOTE: Working full-time means I've less time to write.
Thus, my stories will mostly be retrospective from henceforth.
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When i was working in Merlin Park Hospital, my boss made everyone on the team present a journal at least twice in our 3 months rotation. And they didn't want us presenting any shitty paper either, not that this didn't happen once or twice. A good rule of thumb, the big boss tells us, is to look for a study that had been published within the last 6 months, has been thoroughly peer-reviewed and is relevant and interesting. This was not an easy task. Imagine rummaging through a field of hay looking for a needle. That's how looking for a decent research paper is like. You can't even began to imagine the number of crap people publish out there in the name of science. But i digress, my story has nothing to do with less-than-perfect publications, but everything to do with me.
You should know that this being my first job and all, presenting in front of anyone (even in front of a team as small as ours) was kind of a big deal for me. I wanted to make a good impression.
So for days i scoured through the internet before going to work, in between work and after work, until my eyes burned and my head spun in circular motions. And eureka, just as i was about to lose all hope, the night before my presentation I found what i had been looking for - the perfect paper! It was an impressive study published recently about this new miracle drug called Apixaban that has the potential to replace Warfarin some time in the new future. I was all pumped up. I scored a big one this time around! At least Dr Carey can't say it's a shitty presentation of some shitty paper from some obscure journal like he told A*** (we'll save that story for another time).
I briefly read through it and decided to go to sleep first because i was just too tired from work that day. 'I'll only sleep for an hour' I made a mental note to myself. Yeah right! Instead, I sleep a good part of the night only to wake up at 4am with a jump remembering i hadn't started on my presentation yet. Now i can tell you this. Doing anything last minute is bad enough, but doing it at 4 am in the morning when you have to get to work at 7 isn't pretty. Sure it's not! Worse part was that I hadn't even read the paper properly yet. How was i gonna discuss something i have no knowledge of?
But i didn't really have time to panic. Instead, I used the 3 hours that i had and worked like a mad horse. And you wouldn't believe this but voila!!! I managed to finish my presentation in time, plus i had a fairly good grasp of the paper. I was sure i could decently answer any questions they throw my way. And with that thought in mind, i dashed for a quick shower and ran out the door to catch my bus to work.
I got to the teaching room 10 minutes before everyone to set up my slide show. And then it happened. My file wouldn't open. I could feel my world crash at that moment. It was like my sunny day had suddenly been taken over by a hailstorm complete with thunder and lightning and darkness.
Everything i did to make it open was an effort in futility. Because although i tried to convince myself i had saved my work properly, i knew with a dread that in my rush to catch my bus i had grabbed the USB drive without bothering to save my work. I pretended to my team which consistent of all men that I was terrible at computers and didn't know how to save a file correctly (they bought this blatant lie so readily without question it was almost insulting. How typical it is that men should think girls aren't good at computers!).
So to make this long story short, i ended up presenting the paper all from memory! And truth be told, i think i did quite an amazing job (*pat pat self on back).
I know I know, i'm awesome! =)
