Whilst waiting for my degree to practice as a nurse practitioner, I decided to apply for a position as a nursing instructor. I submitted an application to a local university and was told to prepare a ten minute presentation of my choice for the hiring committee. I was told to include "alternative teaching methods" in a presentation on a topic of my choice. I prepared two separate presentations and performed a test run with Joseph as my audience. He informed me that my presentations were dreadfully boring and that couldn't even bear to pay full attention. Two days before the interview I took one last crack at yet another presentation and vowed not to show it to Joseph because I did not have enough time to prepare another.
Despite being somewhat apathetic on whether I get this job or not, I was anxious. I think my angst was mostly related to not loving my presentation and the dread of embarrassment. The night before the interview I slept terribly. The morning of I did end up running through the presentation for Joseph just before the interview with the contingency that he not criticize it too much. His one critique was that I needed to let more of my personality shine through. I told him I would try but academia nursing is a pretty dry field.
I arrived to the lecture hall with my audience of four nursing faculty. I loaded up my powerpoint while making small talk with one of the faculty members. Here goes. I was able to load the powerpoint without a hitch which was a minor win for team confidence. I started my first slide and gave my introduction. And then, blasting from one of my bags at full volume was a very energetic "No Doubt" song I had been running to that morning. It took me a full 30 seconds to find the phone and disable the music. And then, I had to face my audience. Fortunately we were all laughing. I explained that a person should not be judged on their choice of running music and though I had silenced the ringer on my phone apparently I should have just turned it off. As it turned out two of the faculty members were also runners.
After that my presentation just flowed. I didn't read off my slide notes completely and interjected thoughts into my talk that I hadn't even considered when I was making the stupid thing. I cracked jokes about the different driving cultures of the north and the south and that a bunch of non-nurse idiots were designing our new healthcare bill. My dreaded interview went well. Afterwards they walked me to the door and told me to enjoy my "No Doubt" music. Joseph's wish came true and my personality shined through despite my efforts to silence it.
Despite being somewhat apathetic on whether I get this job or not, I was anxious. I think my angst was mostly related to not loving my presentation and the dread of embarrassment. The night before the interview I slept terribly. The morning of I did end up running through the presentation for Joseph just before the interview with the contingency that he not criticize it too much. His one critique was that I needed to let more of my personality shine through. I told him I would try but academia nursing is a pretty dry field.
I arrived to the lecture hall with my audience of four nursing faculty. I loaded up my powerpoint while making small talk with one of the faculty members. Here goes. I was able to load the powerpoint without a hitch which was a minor win for team confidence. I started my first slide and gave my introduction. And then, blasting from one of my bags at full volume was a very energetic "No Doubt" song I had been running to that morning. It took me a full 30 seconds to find the phone and disable the music. And then, I had to face my audience. Fortunately we were all laughing. I explained that a person should not be judged on their choice of running music and though I had silenced the ringer on my phone apparently I should have just turned it off. As it turned out two of the faculty members were also runners.
After that my presentation just flowed. I didn't read off my slide notes completely and interjected thoughts into my talk that I hadn't even considered when I was making the stupid thing. I cracked jokes about the different driving cultures of the north and the south and that a bunch of non-nurse idiots were designing our new healthcare bill. My dreaded interview went well. Afterwards they walked me to the door and told me to enjoy my "No Doubt" music. Joseph's wish came true and my personality shined through despite my efforts to silence it.
My phone debuted this song at the 2:38 mark where she is yelling "i'm about to give you away" and then goes into a Gwen Stefani rap session.
Comments
Post a Comment