...And Assurances Are Ample

It's currently 11:41pm on Thursday night. I must say, each night that elapses just gets colder and colder. Before I go to bed each night, I now have to resort to using the thick expensive fury blanket - man that thing really keeps you warm. Anyways, I have a day off school tomorrow so I'm free to stay up all night and what better way to do so than to blog.

Something to smile about is the fact that a lot of pressure from school is slowly diminishing and from there pure satisfaction starts to spawn. Like most of you who are currently studying at university, you would have been ambushed with countless assessments 4-5 weeks ago. I'm currently at the period of the semester where we are either getting the last of our assessments out of the way, or we're being informed of our assessment marks.

On Wednesday, my group had their IT Bookstore Presentation, which I can safely say was executed better than expected. When it comes to group assessments, I'm not too fond of presenting first. I have this belief that irrespective of the circumstances, it is always best to present second and only second. I don't enjoy presenting last, or even late for that matter, simply because I'm the kind of person who builds up an enormous amount of nervousness the longer I have to wait.

The cons of being an eager beaver for presenting are that your mind is too focused on establishing the standards and setting the bar for the upcoming groups. A lot of pressure is usually placed on the first group because that's when everyone's ears are all tuned in. If your group ends up doing an outstanding presentation, well you're in the clear and you can thrive off that confidence for the rest of the lesson. On the other hand, if you end up presenting poorly, then you've basically invited the other groups to make themselves look much superior, denting your confidence drastically. At least when you present second, you can learn from the first group and determine where they went right or wrong and use these factors to your advantage. Presenting first just opens way too many variables for concern and it does take its toll mentally.

In the end, my group was the first to present and while it wasn't in my best interests, I couldn't allow my selfish desires to clash with the best interests of my group. Prior to the presentation, we all exchanged words of nervousness, but honestly I think we did a killer job in the end. You could tell we were feeding off each other's confidence throughout the presentation. After reading all this, you probably have a detailed idea as to how stressful this assignment was and you're probably wondering, 'why all the fuss'? Put simply, our IS teacher is one badass critic. No matter what, she'll find a way to criticize you somehow even if you don't agree.

With that said, that's the last of my group assignments for the semester and I'm glad. Out of the four group assignments I've had this semester, I'd say that bookstore presentation I was just ranting about was the most enjoyable and satisfying. It's unfortunate that this is the last time I'll be seeing those blokes since they're doing the single IT degree, but I wish them all the best for next semester.

On the topic of assessments, today my MPO group received a HD for our presentation on 'Innovation and Change'. Initially, I didn't think our mark of 17.5/20 would equal a HD, but I did the calculation and it did, so that's great. Good work team.

Well that's about it for tonight. Before I conclude, I just want to wish a happy birthday to Ainna. Enjoy your outing tomorrow night. Apologies for not being able to attend.

Over.