Thursday, October 20, 2016

Day 5 - More passion

Before attending this session, Dana asked me to list a couple of things that I am really passionate about. I chose history and travelling as my top passions. Today's class was mainly deduced to observe how passion affects the quality of my speech.

I have almost memorised the poem 'you start dying slowly'. It is incorrectly attributed to Pablo Neruda while it is actually a rough translation of a poem by Brazilian Martha Medeiros. Regardless, I relate well with it. The plan is that I memorise it and present to a real audience in a few weeks. Today, I presented it for Dana; I could not recall all parts but I could feel progress as the first step.

I talked with Dana about aspects of history that fascinates me. He wanted me to talk about things that I love to observe my talk quality and I felt into his trap. Apparently, the passion that comes out has a positive affect. I also casually talked about my trips to Japan and India and travelling in general, which is the second passion I had listed. Dana recorded a video of me talking about Paris cemeteries. An interesting observation was that, when I talk about these fascinating experiences, I talk well, my body movements are solid, and adapt myself to situations (e.g., rising my voice when a helicopter passes), without even paying  attention to techniques I have learned for giving talks.

I should find ways to direct my passion into my research talks and lectures. A part of the issue is that Dana as an audience member gives a lot of positive energy when I talk in front of him. This is not necessarily the case for a typical undergraduate class or a lecture talk in Computer Science.

The video of my talk is here.  

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