My first presentation in an international conference

This July I went to a conference held in Irland. It is a very important sociolinguistic symposium and I am very happy that my abstract was accepted in the first place. I can still remember that I was very nervous on the day of presentation. Sandy, my coursemate from Hong Kong, and I were practicing for the whole morning and couldn't concentrate on any talks but think of how to impress the audience in the afternoon. It was my first time having a presentation in a big conference; I was excited but at the same time was afraid of my poor English and performance as well. Fortunately, I was with Sandy in the same session, haha.. at least I was not alone. Sandy was very supportive and gave me her encouraging look all the time during my talk. Thanks to her, I could finish my presentation without any big mistakes. And our experienced host, Brian, also tried to eliminate the tension and stress in my mind. To tell the truth, I couldn't breathe properly until the discussion after the talk was over. It was an unforgettable experience to me. I think I will never forget it. Hope in the future I will have more opportunties to present my research and will definitely get improved, and no longer be scared.

Diary 1: counting down for my PhD thesis

I have no idea how much time I've been wasting since July, when I promised myself I would study harder in the writing-up year. And here we are... I still cannot fully concentrate on my studies even though I could strongly feel the time pressuse and stress on me. By the way, the research that I am focusing on is conversational code-switching between Taiwanese and Mandarin. Back to the confession, I have to admit that...don't know why, I just have such talents, that is, I can easily make up some excuses such as Fresher's Week or Friend's hanging-out nights for getting myself out of the bloody horrible situation, i.e. writing the thesis and getting started. For God's sake, what am I doing? From today, I'd better face the reality and do something except fooling around or dreaming. Let's hope it's gonna be a great and actual start!! Goodbye for all of those bad habits that have been lingering around me for ages. All I need is the inspiration, or.. the magic, magic, magic?!