I think I have to keep today in record. So that I can remember everything about this particularly important day in the future.
This morning I woke up at 7.30am, went through the list of "speculated questions", talked to the wall as if it was Stuart's face, practiced and timed myself through the 25mins talk. The breathing difficulty stopped, feeling slightly calmer, I went to take a cold shower, packed my bag and went to the bus stop.
I reached 3rd floor of MLS building, the lab appeared to be empty, so I went into the office, sat with a blank mind. I think everyone was at Karina's talk, so after a while, I heard Matt, Van and Jordan talking, trying to get someone to calm me down, I went to meet them up. They were like : how u feeling? u r next up! I expressed all my worries with bitter face expressions and murmurs of half-constructed sentences. I appreciate the comfort you guys provided, especially from you Matt, you looked so sincere when you said I will be fine. :)
And then in the 5th floor meeting room, trying to set up my slides...people coming in...my thesis readers, Stuart and Steven discussing about something (probably strategy to kill me)...and then everything happen very quick, before I realised, I was done with the 25 mins talk. Bryan's yawn distracted me a lil bit, sorry to bore u bryan haha. All the other people in the audience seats, Rebecca with her eager looks, Matt and Karina, Jordan, Van, Anne.....everyone.....I felt your support. thanks. I'm so glad I can answer questions by Grant, Paul and someone else i forgot.
And then, they moved the big table to the middle, put all the lollies on the table, Rebecca gave me a chair, I sat down at one end of the table, and moved the green bag a little bit to the side so that I can see the 3 readers in front of me. And it started. questions.....1st question by Briony about tetramer kinda killed me.....I blah-ed a lot. And went on and blah-ed on other questions. There were a few questions I really don't know how to answer, but I kept talking. My mind was working fast!! And when Kirk joined in about mutating the residues to glycine instead of alanine, I think the discussion was kinda lifely! And Stuart's question about LBP-2 to LBP-8 LOL!! It made everyone laughed when Rebecca said yes it was silly naming. And then Keith, who is always quiet and I like him a lot, asked me about the error bars. And Steven, he is kinda weird, his questions were.........ehh... u know, so so, and he asked me how long it takes to conduct the shRNA knockdown validation, that gaves me a chance to boast about how tiresome this work was. And then Briony, she was not as bad as I thought, she smiled to me all the while!
Anyway, when Dan said time's up, i literally ran out of the freakin room. Everything is over now. Adrienne and Anne told me my talk was heaps better than the run through, thanks guys.
And everything else seems insignificant now. It is a symphony by a full-size orchestra reaching the peak, the beats are fast, the music is intense, and sudden drop of silence. The feeling is like you are in pitch black darkness, you don't even know if your feet are on the ground. It is also like something which has been in you for so so long, has been taken away. The problem, the stress and eventually the tranformed liking, is now gone. It will be a problem, a stress and then a liking for the juniors now. I am post-honours, damn it.
When my supervisor said, "you don't have to worry about LBPs ever again", I was sad.
I am still sad.
