Rocking Presentations: Version 2.4

This may become a recurring series, given that I have piles of presentations coming up.

You all may remember my previous entry on this subject, http://theanecditz.blogspot.com/2008/04/skewed-priorities-or-how-to-rock.html
or the fact that I tend to spend more time primping than working on school-related work.

Not news.

Last time, my presentation was a group presentation. Last night, my presentation was a SOLO VENTURE. I haven't done one of those in ages. Potentially ever.

So, as per usual, I give you Ditz's Guide to Rocking Presentations Like a Hurricane.

• Make sure your topic is something you know the MOST ABOUT in your entire class (and/or the world). It's not fun to present something that EVERYONE ALREADY UNDERSTANDS.
• Spend an unusually large amount of time choosing a catchy title. It's important to GRAB your audience in the first 12 seconds of your presentation. Good titles make you think. GREAT TITLES have a colon in them. No, not THAT KIND.
• Use PowerPoint. Everyone loves PowerPoint. That, and it looks like you put it A HECK OF A LOT MORE WORK INTO IT than you actually have.
• 3 days before the presentation: decide that working on anything else aside from it is a priority. Tell people you're really stressed.
• 2 days before the presentation: start working intensely hard on your slides.
• On PowerPoint - pick a slide design template that has at least ONE shade of pink. Everyone LOVES pink.
• Put at least ONE clip art image on each slide. Clip art is equivalent to sunshine on a cloudy day.
• Make sure you have a pile and a half of fun graphs, charts, useless pictures to hand out. Everyone loves a distraction.
• When a professor says they want a "Business" presentation, what they REALLY mean is they want an ENTERTAINING & FUN & CASUAL presentation. Obviously.
• Day of presentation: be really stressed. Call in sick to work. Take a 2 hour power nap filled with HIGH ANXIETY dreams about sleeping through your presentation.
• Spend vast majority of your day dreaming about what outfit to wear. Spend the other part of your day endlessly recounting how REAL your anxiety dreams were.
• 4 hours before presentation: trek over to local Bureau En Gros to save on your own personal ink supply and print out FUN HANDOUTS on glossies.
• Spend 20 minutes arguing with Bureau En Gros technicians at how they actively try to ruin your life by not having any functioning color printers AT ANY OF THEIR LOCATIONS.
• Print out dozens of Wikipedia articles on your topic for reference points. Hello? Wikipedia is THE ultimate source of all truths.
• 2 hours before presentation: have an ultimate freak-out breakdown. Uninvite your precious Prince from attending. HE is the reason you're stressed. It's not the fact that you're still missing 2 crucial slides; it's that you're nervous to perform in front of him. HE MIGHT JUDGE YOU.
• 95 minutes before presentation: finish slides. Calm down.
• 1 hour before presentation: show Momma slides. After all, she GAVE YOU LIFE, she deserves to see your slides.
• T-45 minutes: take a leisurely shower. You have to look your best, and you KNOW IT.
• Change your outfit 12 times. Decide on something borderline provocative. If they aren't going to focus on your presentation, let them focus on your goods.
• Arrive 12 minutes late to class. You need to make an entrance and you know it.
• When the projector doesn't work, sit on a desk and present casually.
• 1 word: SMILE. Everyone needs to see what your parents paid good money to fix. Take cues from the Cheshire Cat. He knows where it's at!
• Keeping in mind that you have a time limit of 10-15 minutes, ignore that, and talk for 35-40 minutes. You're interesting, your topic is the best AND YOU HAVE NO REGARD FOR ANYONE ELSE'S TIME.
• Graciously accept any/all questions from the peanut gallery. Questions = interest. Lack of questions = you suck.
• Curtsy when your classmates clap for you. YOU ROCK!

My classmates told me I was delicious. I only half believe them. I do believe they were just mesmerized by the fact that my presentation was based on the art of blogging and Facebook.

Let's be serious here. Beyond shoes, what else am I physically capable to talk about?