Day 512 of 1000
I was pretty sad yesterday that I missed being with Lorena on her birthday. Thankfully, our wonderful friends, Tom and Sharon, took Lorena, Kelly, and Christian to Dos Taquitos in Raleigh to celebrate. Tom and Sharon have changed our North Carolina experience in a way we never would have expected two or three years ago. We owe them a lot. I talked to everyone on the drive home from the dinner. I got a big kick out of a great little story Kelly told me so I had her write up and send to me. Here it is.
So I got an email from my undergrad advisor telling all the stats majors about an afternoon lecture in SAS hall by some corporate statistical bigwig. I have seven hours off on Mondays so I decided to go for it and learn something!
Four o’clock rolled around and I walked up the five stories of SAS and got a great seat for the lecture in the middle of the statistical conference room. I looked around for some of my friends but recognized no one. More and more people entered and sat down but everyone looked 10 years older and unfamiliar. This went over my head. Its not like I know everyone in the department, and new friends in your field of study are always a good thing! But before I could introduce myself to the kids next to me, the speaker walked up to the front and began his lecture. It was about communicating as a statistician in a corporate world and it was super absorbing and fascinating. While he was talking, someone passed me the attendance sheet. I looked, but my name wasn’t on it. This is definitely a warning sign that you’re in the wrong place but the lecture was so good that this ALSO went over my head. It was only when the speaker began randomly calling people out for questions in class that I began to wonder if maybe I was confused. And then he looked straight at me and asked: “In all your graduate school experience, how many times total would you estimate you’ve had to speak for an audience?”
I SHOULD have said I’m not in graduate school. But when you are a Chapman and three very handsome Ph.D candidates are looking back at you and the president of the ASA is sitting in the audience, you don’t always say what you’re supposed to.
“About 15 times!” I told him.
Turns out you CAN sell anything with confidence!! To my total surprise my adrenalin fueled blind estimate was not only feasible but also praiseworthy for evidence of my obviously prolific graduate level statistical communication. I was SO SMUG you guys. Insufferable. I think I even winked at one of the cute grad students while high on the fumes of smug. Life in the fast lane!
The proverbial fall came too soon!! Five minutes into my glory at getting away with it in a GRAD level lecture I twisted around in my seat for a stretch and spotted last semester’s freshman seminar’s TA who’s getting his masters in stats and knows very very VERY well that I am a lowly first-year. I could’ve melted and died on the spot!!!
Learned my lesson I guess.
Classic! It’ll be interesting to learn about subsequent fall-out, or, chances are, fall-in, since she’s a plucky Chapman!! (Plucky: Having or showing determined courage in the face of difficulties.) I imagine she learned more than she might have in the other lecture!!
Troy
Awesome story! Thanks for sharing.
I got a big kick out of this story, too. I am trying to talk Kelly into writing here and drawing some comic strips here on a more regular basis. She has some great college stories. So does Lorena.
Rigo
awesome Kelly ! I have said many things too when I am under pressure 🙂 little by little you will have confidence and your answers will be assertive, being a Pedraza too 🙂 I think you will not have issues in this kind of funny situations.
hahaha thank you! It was not a very graceful or prideful moment for me, to be perfectly honest. The TA did not give me a very approving look. Here’s hoping I never make eye contact with that particular grad student again! The rush was pretty excellent though, I’ll have to go look for more classes to pop into. Today statistics tomorrow math? 🙂