Conference

My first time in Sheffield was fun and productive! I stayed at a hotel in the city centre for three days and enjoyed walking around the town. On Thursday, I took the tram, attended a conference at the university and met a couple of Japanese scholars (but most of the attendees were British scholars based in Japan). My PhD colleagues gave presentations, so I was feeling much more relaxed with my peers this time and was able to enjoy initiating conversation with neighbours.

In Japan, exchanging business cards is very common (or rather it is something that ‘should be done’ at a formal occasion, even among university students). Such exchanges on the first meeting at the conference were frequently seen. I found it so Japanese, although exchanging business cards isn’t unusual in the UK and Europe.

A few sessions were related to my area, and I learnt more about an extended field from my studies. My project focuses on a framework for face-to-face health communication, and their projects centre on gerontology and technological invention. There are tons of things to learn from the innovation in interactive technologies, and I was totally fascinated to hear about it.

I stayed in a lovely room with a terrace

Presentation Slides

Since coming back from Sheffield, I have worked on improving my pilot analysis, presentation slides and script, and have been reading all the chapters I have written so far. Last night, Luca called me ‘big academic nerd’. I am happy to be called that! I want to try my best to deliver a good and informative presentation. My friend gave me some tips on presenting: ‘put a lot of pictures on your slides (visualise)’ and ‘practise a hundred times’. I will do the latter, but I’m not sure about the former. I don’t have many figures, tables and pictures and, personally, I don’t like a style whereby the presenter only shows a picture and talks for a couple of minutes; some keywords or phrases for displaying his/her points could be helpful. I have one week left until my first conference presentation and I shall try my best.

Saturday dinner: stir-fried noodles

My achievements in Week 88

• Attended the conference and had a lovely time in Sheffield.
• Added some pilot analysis to my transcripts and shared them with my supervisors.
• Made presentation slides.

Goals for Week 89

• Practise my presentation in full before I deliver it on 17th!