The week enmodes controlled my lfie

It's week 14. Monday was the calm before the storm. We had a few lectures before doing the AT workshop. It was relaxing and nice to think about things differently. I'm not sure I'll continue with it though since it didn't feel super helpful. I will continue with mindful resting or something of the sort. Taking a few minutes to be mindful each day is important. Starting Tuesday, enmodes ruled my life. We worked on our slides all day and got a lot done! I'm proud of my work and have learned a lot about the material as well as researching topics in general. The first half of the day Tuesday I was nervous I would have to switch filters I researched which meant I would start from zero. But as I kept researching, my fears went away because I found more evidence proving the one I chose despite the information I found on the other paper. I also was able to find information about coating on the filters so in the end it was helpful. The second half of the day I made sure my slides had everything I wanted to present on. We only presented once Tuesday but it was very helpful. I got a lot of tips on my slides that helped me narrow down the information to what was necessary and made them look a lot better. We ended up staying past midnight and it was really late by the time I got home and got into bed.

After going to bed late, I had to wake up early the next day for a doctors appointment at 8:45. Not good since we had another full day ahead of us to work on the presentations. The first half of the day we went back over our slides, editing them after last nights feedback and making sure we knew what to present.  The second half focused on the actual presentation. I've spoke in public a lot for my service dog organization, explaining concepts and what the program was about was natural to me. But having to present, even on a topic I'd done my research on, was extremely hard. I kept stumbling over words and forgetting the flow of material. Still I ran through it multiple times with the teaching team, by myself, and with friends in the program. The constructive criticism from the team was appreciated and made my presentation better. We ended Thursday extremely late too and I took a night bus and walked to my house.

Each presentation, something went wrong so I was nervous for when the pressure was actually on at the presentation Thursday but I just accepted that I would do my best. I focused on the tempo of my presentation, taking breaths and commanding the audience, with the help my Josh who did debate in high school and presents very well. It paid off because my best presentation of the material was during the meeting with enmodes. On Thursday, we went back to the hotel where we first got assigned the project to present our final slides to enmodes. We did some chi gong to calm down before presentations which was needed as I was starting to feel really poor. My mom always warned about burning the candle at both ends , and she was right. I got sick during the presentations. I broke out in a fever during the first groups presentation and took an advil right before my group went on. Thankfully it didn't effect performance and I was able to make it through pretty well. I gotta say, my group killed it! All our efforts paid off and we held our own during questions. I became better at presentations and the experience I gained with enmodes and from the project is invaluable! Then, we celebrated with champagne before heading home to prepare for our Easter weekend travels. I'm going hiking with Joshua and Ana so stay tuned to see if I survive!