Presentation kickstart

Thursday 13th October

Today is the official start of my mid-terms, with a presentation on Arla foods and the cartoon crisis at 4pm. However no day is complete without a gym session. Today i managed to break the 1000 calorie barrier in 65 minutes. 

I'll admit for my first proper test in the US, i was fairly nervous, especially because i haven't delivered many before. now i'd be delivering 2 in the space of 5 days.I'm sure i'll do just fine. And what would be the best way to prepare for the presentation than stuffing your face with food. However, Adrian my flatmate was heading to the commons for a bite to eat. The commons are seperate to the student union food court because they offer more home-cooked and slightly healthier meals.

Since at this point I had an hour and a bit to kill before my first class, i decided to check it out. the actual choice varies day by day, but today they had a turkey escallop in breadcrumbs, on a bed of rice and steamed veg, for only $5, which i got and was thoroughly satisfied with it. It's just a shame they're only open 11 - 3 Mon to Fri.

First class came and went very quickly. which leads on to International management and time for my first test. Today, 4 groups would be presenting, starting with yours truly (darn). We started with Matt covering an overview of the case study, explaining the situation and setting the scene. Brissette followed by explaining what decisions needed to be made by both parties in the argument. Nergis (of Germany) followed up with the conditions of the decisions that needed to be discussed and certain criteria that each decision needed to fulfill.

The preverbial baton was then passed to me to finish off. My role was to discuss the recommended decisions that each party needed to make and what impacts this would have on the business, the economies and the global image. I won't discuss the details of my presentation to avoid your inevitable confusion, but I will mention that out of the 4 groups that presented, i was only 1 of 2 people who used no prompt. This was quite obvious however, as it wasn't the strongest presentation I have delivered.

On the Sunday after the presentation, we received an e-mail from our professor who gave us all brief feedback. This is quoted from that e-mail 

"Phil – Excellent categorization of decisions into primary, secondary, and tertiary; addressed the audience and didn’t read off notecards which is a plus. Did a good job in expanding on key points. Great at breaking down the analysis; explained clearly the basis of the decisions; was a little nervous and stuttered"

Pretty re-assuring feedback, which I hope will be continued in the second presentation, due on Tuesday.

Luckily, the class afterwards only lasted 90 minutes rather than 2 hours, which gave me time to complete the peer review of my presentation colleagues and speak about their contribution to both the plan and the presenting before it's due time of 11:59pm

3/4 of an hour later and my work was completed. Time to relax in from of the TV just like most other Americans (except in this case, my TV was my laptop and the lack of adverts was compensated by the fluctuations in internet connection.) I'd been experiencing these since Monday night and they did warn us about it, so I can't complain.