Sophie's Socks and Stuff

As well as my first ever research paper coming out I also gave my first oral presentation at a conference. It was only a fairly small national conference but still quite an acheivement. I was very much the token electrochemist and even then I'm right at the fringes of electrochemistry so even people with a good understanding of electrochemistry find my stuff a bit random and mad. Anyway I was all on my own and knew that the potential for nasty, difficult questions was a real possibility and I couldn't rely on my supervisors to bail me out. As it happened everyone seemed to like my stuff and I didn't get any difficult questions and I was dead pleased that lots of other supervisors and group leaders came up to me to say how good my talk was, a real boost to my self esteem. My talk was quite mental, I knew that it was going to be really irrelevant and difficult to understand some of the concepts so I decided to be super enthusiastic. I have sat through so many talks where good work has been spoilt by dry, dull and seemingly uninterested speakers and I always find it so frustrating and such a shame. I'd far rather sit through a not very intersting science talk with a clear and enthusiastic speaker than a really interesting science talk with a rubbish speaker.