I'm an imperfect perfectionist

My sincere apologies for posting this late on a Sunday evening, but I had a really busy week and only wanted to post this if I was happy with the outcome of it. This actually brings me to my main problem this week:

We had to present an infographic in small groups at the end of the lesson. You're probably thinking: "Inès, what's so problematic about that? What's wrong?" Well, I used to have a lot of difficulties with concentrating in class, but only when doing an assignment or task. I could perfectly make them at home, in all the peace and quiet I had, but in class I always failed miserably. I put myself under way too much pressure and was distracted by literally everything. I'm not trying to sound piteous, I'm just trying to state the facts and I guess you're learning something new about me in the process (yay!). So making an infographic was fairly difficult for 2 reasons: firstly because I, as I stated before, put myself under too much pressure and secondly because I wanted to do it properly and not offhandedly (hence the title). I wanted to get this off my chest first, which is why I started telling you about the end of the lesson first, but I'll get on with how the rest of my Monday morning went now.

We watched extracts from 2 presentations done by Clay Shirky and based on those extracts we learned that there are 2 kinds of nonverbal communication: deliberate and relaxed. We also treated the 2 ways to get the attention of your audience, or in other words: a hook. There is the bottom-up approach, wherein you build up to your main point and the opposite of that, the top-down approach, wherein you start with stating your main point and give the explanation afterwards. I definitely think this is a very handy tool to use in future presentations.

But I still kind of felt bad for not being able to make that infographic... Luckily there were fun things waiting for me nearing the end of the week! On Thursday I went to see Years & Years in Brussels and it was amazing! My friend and I wanted to be as close as possible to the stage, so we chose to stand instead of picking a seat. We occasionally complained about our legs hurting so much, but it was totally worth it and a perfect way to end this stressful week!

So now that I ended with something fun and entertaining, I can end this blog post with all the satisfaction I have and go to bed. Take care and I'll talk to you very soon!

Inès
                                                                                                                      
To account (for)

• Explanation in class: to be responsible for something
• Oxford Dictionary: to give a satisfactory record of (something, typically money, that one is responsible for)

To pose (a challenge)

• Explanation in class: to be difficult
• Oxford Dictionary: to present or constitute (a problem or danger)