Presenting: a rewarding experience!

I had never thought I was going to present using the Pecha Kucha format. In fact, I had never heard about it before this year so it was a totally new world for me. When we had to decide on the dates for the presentations I plucked up the courage and I enrolled for the first day. I didn´t want anyone to “steal” my ideas and I didn´t want to be influenced by others´ either!

Once I chose a topic, I searched for the pictures. I spent a couple of hours doing so because I wanted my presentation to be both touching and humorous, and it was very difficult to find pictures which were funny if the topic was chaos. After selecting the pictures, I decided how to organize them in a logical and clear way. I wanted others to understand the presentation or to have their own interpretations of it, without even listening to my voice. Finally, I plunged into the presentation itself.

It was the first time I was going to use Power Point and hence, I asked for a little help at home. After learning how it worked, I moved the slides, I wrote titles, I rotated them and I chose the colours. I was really engaged in the process!

Before the day of the presentation I rehearsed what I was going to say. I wrote some guidelines just to organize my thoughts at the moment of speaking and I tried not to look at them, as I didn´t want to be glued to the paper while speaking and, to tell you the truth, I cannot speak properly in public if I have a paper in hand. I practiced a couple of times and I predicted possible mistakes or slips I could have at the moment of the presentation.

When that moment came I was a bit nervous and I felt my knees were shaking. However, I just need to start talking. Seeing my classmates´ faces looking at the pictures and seeming engaged and surprised by each slide made me relax. My voice was trembling at some points but I was feeling that everything was going as I had expected. Time flew during the presentation and when it finished, the round of applause was highly rewarding.

Fortunately, most classmates said they fully enjoyed the presentation and they said they had not expected to find under the title “chaos” all the topics I had included. While this was rewarding, it was also rewarding to learn how to use Power Point, to put my thoughts into words in a meaningful and concise way and to make a presentation using Pecha Kucha. In fact, I would try it again!

If you want to see my Pecha Kucha, click here!