Presentation Day : The Groups

Presentation Day: The Groups :)

[This is a continuation of my blog “Presentation Day: The individual Project”] .Enjoy!

{…I was about to call for a meeting. “Guys” I yelled} 

I sounded louder than intended, which decidedly made me feel a bit uncomfortable.

     They froze at once, and stared at me in expressions that commanded a justification for my outburst. However, I could not have chosen any worse a time to lose my train of thought .It took me an awfully long time before I could utter anything, before I garner the courage to say to myself: “Buck up Snoopy, you’re embarrassing yourself by not saying anything; speak now!” I felt somewhat more composed and I do not know for certain whether they took notice of the edge of nervousness that was in my voice at the time, but in any case, I told them that we needed to have a meeting. “Now!” I insisted, although I hit the soft pedal on my decibels that time but that did not undermine any of my authoritative timbre. To my surprise no one said anything or even batted an eyelash. One would have thought that I have just addressed them in some arcane Icelandic dialect. They looked stunned and slightly annoyed. “Look, it does not have to be long but, it’s crucial that we discuss one or two things today. I hate to sound overbearing but I presume each of you understands the importance of this project and…” I paused mid-sentence and decided to bolster my request with a little theatrical performance, so I shook my head as if in despair and addressed them:“… you know? Why am I such a geek? I think I did well in my individual project and if I ace my final exam-which I can- I think I will be able to offset my bad score for this project, I just need a passing grade”. Unsurprisingly, that strategy worked; as I was making my way out towards the parking lot, Enne announced that she could spare a few minutes if that meeting is not going to be that long. Jemina miraculously discovered that she has nothing important to do after class and thought a little meeting would not hurt. All eyes were pelted at Joos, at that moment, he quickly realized he had the final verdict, and did he like the attention he was getting. He scratched his scalp, glanced at his wristwatch and even though none of us expressed it with a sigh, but we all were relieved when he finally made up his mind that he would stick around. I was almost certain I heard fanfares blasting in my head for I had just managed to rally up my team, like a true leader would. While I was taking in this conceited haze, somebody else had already dislodged me from my high seat. “Well, what are we waiting for? Let’s go, let’s go! Let’s not waste any more time now, let’s get down to business then, shall we?” It was a concerned Joos, amping us up, pointing to us where we should huddle up, and what mystified me even further was how cordial he was with the ladies, he offered to take their coats and was willing to buy them refreshments too. I don’t know how such reflection crept into my mind, but I interpreted the looks I received from Enne and Jemina as if I was being reprimanded for not being up to par with Joos’ chivalry- I could have sworn he had a sneer on his face when I looked. Thankfully, I snapped out of this taunting idea and restrained myself well enough not to make monkey of Joos when the girls turned down his propositions. I was rather disgusted with myself for that instance of envy and ‘snarkiness’. “For what? It is not the time to have a testosterone bout with that guy, it never should be”. I chided myself. When my egocentric fit waned, I found it was easier to accept Joos in the role of the leader-of-the -day. The joy of partaking in a well-overdue team meeting was too immense to wallow in senseless jealousy. 

     As on cue, when we were all seated, everyone pulled out a notepad and something to write with, without anyone’s command- “Wow! That’s promising”, I felt. We were at long last taking matters seriously. The meeting officially started with Joos asking us to fill him in with our concept, I obliged almost instantly. Without missing a beat, I told him all about our plan in a very pragmatic fashion. I made sure my eyes were fixated on him alone, giving him a clear signal that the girls had already approved of that idea. At first, he looked grossly uninterested and I expected him to cut me off at any moment and snap something like “This plan sucks!” I pressed on, and even had to improvise and incorporated some information that was not on paper in order to woo his approval. As I carried on, I earned some few nod out of him, which pleased me. 
“… that’s pretty much sums up our plan, it can use a few touch ups, other than that, I think it’ll make for a decent project. What do you think?” I concluded; in a cleverly disguised, matter-of-factly voice. He said it was OK with the idea, but in no way was he impressed. So, to clear the air between us, I asked him whether he would like to add anything else to it. Apparently, that was the kind of invitation Joos was praying to hear. He had a myriad of inquiries to make, I answered most of them and whenever I stuttered Enne would step in to help and Jemina would ice the cake with some savory imagery to satisfy his inquisitive mind. Ultimately, he admitted that the project was too commonplace. “Don’t get me wrong guys, but if we are to stick with this, as is, we ought to be the first to present because I’ll bet money one of these other groups will present something similar”.

[The business plan the girls and I conceived was that we would pretend that we are four investors seeking a new business venture in a foreign country. In the development of the business project we needed to have an executive summary of the plan, some general information about that country, i.e. culture, economy, political and social matters, its natural resources and indicate why the industry of our choice would flourish there, and more. We agreed that we would focus our interest in the tourism and hospitality industry; hence, we drafted a plan for a state of the art and all-inclusive resort in that country]

    Joos’s comment hit me like a wrecking ball had just landed on my temple. He had radically dwarfed my “big” idea, but my common sense dictated me that he was absolutely right. A resort was in fact a clichéd business venture, and I know our instructor would expect something more challenging and original from us, this was a university-level assignment, after all. We might as well come up with the erupting volcano kids present every year as their science projects; it would have made no difference. I was still in my own little world when suddenly I heard a coy and dispirited Enne assert: “He’s right, Snoopy”. Jemina was blunter “Good, now we’re back to square one”. I wanted to add ‘all of our effort come to naught’ but what came out instead was “Do you have anything Joos? ... Anything?” I was joined by a choir: “Joos, please” meowed Jemina, “Yeah, man, we know you’ve got something” said Enne. All three of us were in plea and that made Joos smile, and this tense situation was fast turning into a self –deprecating comedy: “we’re screwed” one would say “ No, we suck” the other would reply ,that went on for minutes, which at the time I thought was better than crying ourselves in self-pity.

     “I have an idea!” cried Joos, interrupting our satirical play. We all were pleasantly surprised at his announcement. “What is it, what is it” begged Jemina, even I, couldn’t hide my excitement “Yeah, man what is it?”When Joos finished sharing his idea with us, our faces lit up like a pumpkin, my eyes bulged out and grew as big as two saucers. I shrieked: “Awesome, I like it!” What made Joos’s plan extraordinary was that it didn’t defeat the purpose of the research that we had already gathered, it married easily well. He really had pulled out a fat rabbit out of the hat with his brilliant proposition. Afterwards, we felt as though we had accomplished a ton of work, when in reality our project was simply a better idea, no notes were taken and nobody was assigned any task for that matter. However, we figured we have had enough emotions and brought our meeting to a close, on condition that we meet during the week before next Saturday, the day the group presentations are due. After reaching a consensus, we determined that our next conference will meet on Wednesday and soon after that, we parted. Joos didn’t shy and declared that he was heading straight to a nearby pub- No one knew if that was an oblique invitation to celebrate his genius, but apparently, no one else was in the mood for booze. 

     Sooner than we wished, Wednesday rolled in and we were to meet at a previously discussed location and indulge ourselves in a power meeting. It was late in the evening but I pulled up ten minutes early than the time we compromised to meet at. Surprisingly, Joos and Jemina were already there as I approached our pow-wow area, and they both greeted me with a content smile. “I wouldn’t miss this meeting for the World Cup” I quipped. Joos’s response was witty as well, he said: “We were about to get started without you”- “…and Enne” Jemina remarked. “Oh, right! Her” Joos seemed to have just realized that Enne was not present, although she wasn’t late, per se. So we chit- chatted for a moment and tried to avoid any discussion related to the project for that time being. However, after 30 minutes or so we began to wave our eyebrows, ‘where in the world is Enne?’ our expression seem to convey. Finally, Jemina had had enough, she wiped out her phone: “I’m going to call her…can’t believe she could actually forget about our meeting”. Joos and I nodded in agreement. Jemina dialed her number and placed the phone on the table in front of us, I assumed the call was set on speaker so we all could listen in. The phone rang for an awful long time, long enough that Joos lost his cool and said “I think she’s avoiding us right now, maybe she doesn’t care, I say we start without her”, not realizing that Enne had already picked up when he was launching his rant. Jemina and I sat baffled, wondering how Enne would take those words. She answered “Hello, guys” and Jemina asked rather cautiously “we were just worried about you; you think you can still make it?”Before Enne had a chance to follow up with Jemina’s request, Joos attempted to play down his statement from earlier by adding “Did you hear what I said? You know I was joking, right?” Enne offered a blatant “whatever” as response, which Joos found funny and cackled loudly at, Jemina and I were laughing too, but we made certain we could not be heard by her. After coming forward with a solid excuse, Enne broke it up to us that she will not be able to attend the meeting but proposed: “I can stay on the line… If can be useful to you all”. I detected a tinge of frustration and sarcasm in her statement, clearly made to torment Joos further, I supposed. 

    We ended up getting a lot done this time as far as our project is concerned; although our meeting was shortened considerably due to the fact Enne wasn’t present, physically. Jemina was eager to leave, for some strange reasons “Ok, so, are we done? ... I think we’ve covered a lot tonight…we’re in good shape, no?”. I guessed she must have felt ‘outgendered’ and somewhat uncomfortable. When Joos and I decided to wrap up she couldn’t have been more relieved. One thing remained undefined, as we were packing up: when our next meeting is going to be? -Because we needed to stitch together the segments that we were each assigned, and polish the final project together. We only had two days cushion before the dreaded and looming Saturday to work out a few things Joos raised to the occasion again, and showed another moment of brilliance. Joos’s suggestion is that we all meet up on Google +. He even took the time to walk us through what it was when he saw the intriguing looks on our faces,” Google plus, isn’t that something like a social website?” “Yeah, I don’t even have a Google account” “Me too” “Me three”. He explained to us the concept of Google Docs, which could enable us to work simultaneously on a document at the comfort of our homes. I remember, I almost launched myself to him and hug him for acquainting us with that science. Then and there, Jemina and I created a Google account; Enne did the same on her end. We exchanged our newly generated email addresses and Joos added us in his friend list. He then set up a Google document we can edit and add stuff to as we pleased. Little by little, Joos was rekindling the joy I felt when I first found out he would be in my group, he was proving that he was such a great asset after all, and did so at the most crucial of times. For the first time, in a long time, I felt that we were making striding progress. Before we parted, we set a deadline for ourselves that each of us should paste our work to that Google doc, by Friday night at 7:00 PM at the latest and that we all should be online on Google plus for a final revision before we hit “Print”.

     That same night, I logged in my Google account and was the first to make a contribution to the project’s document. I had a slight advantage, having already conducted some steep research and considering the fact that the project was 50% my brain child, that was no surprise. I literally re-worded and made a few rectifications to the notes I gathered before. By midnight or so, I thought I had typed three well documented paragraphs and decided to call it a night. The next morning, I logged back in to see if anyone had made any comments or added anything to our document but unsurprisingly so, nobody had typed a comma or even logged in to view the document. So later into the day, I decided to check back to see how the project was evolving- that time, I could see that Joos was online and so was Enne yet the document was still three paragraph long, I signed off and thought “Ok, I would check again that night”. While at work, having already completed my task for the project and with some time to kill, I searched the internet for some articles that perhaps, my colleagues could find useful, I found a host of them, wrote them down so that I can share with the group later on. As planned, I consulted the document again, still, the document haven’t budged a thing. I figured I would post the links to those articles I found earlier and maybe provoke the others to write something. Friday morning, same story, same disappointment upon finding nothing new in the document and nobody was online, to make matters worse, my stomach was in knots, I was scared and furious. I made many attempts to call my colleagues but only to tell myself:”wait Snoopy, you’re being a geek again, give them time, it’s not even 7:00 PM yet”. At around 7:30 while I was lying on my back fondling the dialing pad of my phone nervously, I received a text message, and it was from Enne: “Thanks for the links, they were very helpful…Have you heard from Jemina or Joos? Their status read offline”. Without caring to reply, I logged in Google + and into the document. “Yes” I said as I punched the air with my fist when I found out that Enne had added two more paragraphs to mine. She was online and quickly replied to an instant message I sent to her via the chat feature on Google+, I told her I have not heard from the others since Wednesday. Then, it looked as though she was panicking,” god! What are these two doing?” – Even though I was actually happy someone other than me was worried; I tried to reassure her that we still had plenty of time and that we should give not put any pressure on them. She didn’t sound too convinced and I couldn’t blame her. As her and I were having some small talks I noticed that someone had pasted a big chunk of sentences into the document, I almost jumped through the ceiling, it was Jemina’s. Enne was just as vigilant and on the left side of my screen I could see a note that read:” Jemina, I’m glad you’re here!” I joined into their chats and Jemina suggested that we could begin with a Power Point presentation with the data we had at hand thus far. I quickly assumed that responsibility and began right away. A few moments after, Jemina asked to be excused because she had an ongoing party at her house and she needed to attend to a few things, but promised that’d shell stay online and come and check on us periodically. Enne said that she’d be around if I needed help with the power point and idled herself. 

     It was well past 10 O’ clock when I completed the Power Point Slide show. I relayed the news to Enne, who had to call Jemina so that the three of us could regroup and review it together along with the project report. After a few minutes of collective revision, the girls pointed out to me that our project wasn’t bad at all- nonetheless, it looked a whole lot similar to our original idea before Joos had any involvement in it. The girls were absolutely correct, we were back to the simple resort idea, although it lacked the original angle Joos’s section could have brought, it was a wholesome project. Jemina’s last question before she asked to be dismissed and hit the hay was who should be the first speaker of the group. To that, Enne simply advised that we memorize our assigned segments and to cunningly speak so that we could each last five minutes. “Yeah, 15 minutes, that should do it” agreed Jemina and then said good night and signed off. So now, it was just Enne and I and a taunting reflection in my head for a moment I was under the impression that the girls were willing to cut Joos out of the group. It was now 10:30-ish, Enne claimed she could barely keep her eyes open and wondered how late I plan to wait up for Joos to show up. I told her I did not know. She asked if she could leave, I said yes and reassured her that I will have everything printed out for tomorrow. She signed off but sent me a text message on my phone that pretty much said: “Call him, if he doesn’t pick up, leave a message. Give him an ultimatum that by midnight if he doesn’t show up, he’s no longer needed”. I was taken aback at her statement to which I inquired: “And what if he shows up?” Her response: “I doubt that he will. But if by some godly chance he does, tell him that he will be the first to speak, (smiley face)”. I had the phone in my hand for five minutes not knowing what to reply and feeling a little sleepy myself, eventually I end up replying something like “OK, goodnight”. When I looked at computer’s my screen, I noticed a cursor was moving across it. I thought my computer was being hacked into, but I became conscious that it was Joos tampering with the Google document. I closed my eyes and breathed a deep sigh of relief ‘Thank goodness’ I mouthed. I watched in total astonishment how quickly he was highlighting stuff, then deleting them and rephrase our sentences in far better words. He added a few lines here and there. Corrected the many grammatical errors we’ve overlooked, reordered the sequence of our paragraphs, typing as fast as lightning that my eyes could barely keep up. He showed so much enthusiasm in perfecting our work that I didn’t want to break his concentration and asked him about his section. After 15 minutes or so, I took advantage of a rare moment of pause where he seemed to have been gathering some ideas and announced my presence to him. His first remark right before apologizing for his tardiness was an acknowledgment to the job the girls and I had done, he thought it looked good. I told him that I can’t imagine how much better it would look once he’d added his section to it. He told me not to look forward to that, he hadn’t conducted any research yet. “It’s midnight, Joos, are you going to stay up late and do it?” I asked vaguely, not really expecting an affirmative answer. “No” and he continued “I’m burned out, I just came back from a seminar and I'm totally out of it tonight, but I will verbally touch on it tomorrow during our presentation”. “Joos, do you think we can get five minutes out of you? The girls and I are pitching in 15 minutes” I asked. “If you want I could be the only speaker for the group, I do that on a weekly basis, all I need is glance over that document a few times, and it’s registered in my mind “He replied with utmost confidence. I told him that we will go over that with the girls in the morning and added that if I had my way I would not have minded being the speaker for the group either. It wasn’t until after I sent him that message that I realized I might have unwittingly sent him a message that I was just as good as him, which I wasn’t. I quickly made up for that by writing: “I’m off to bed. Thanks for the corrections. That’s quite impressive”. He must have contemplated these last words for three minutes before replying: “I’m glad I can help” and “Good night”. I shut down my computer, crawled up to bed and I guess I fell asleep before my head could hit the pillow.

     I woke up the next day feeling well rested .My alarm set off as soon as I grabbed my phone to determine how many hours of sleep I had. Without making a fuss I silenced it and turned my gaze to my computer, almost as a reflex. I was not ready for the surprise that was awaiting me when I logged in on Google + to assess our business plan document one last time. In addition to what the girls and I had written, there was an an executive summary page, a table of content and two more paragraphs that looked like Joos’s section. I was astounded at how incredibly better our project shaped into. I knew I was too old to believe that some fairy elves had visited overnight and done this magical makeover to our work. It must have been Joos’s exploit, it had to be. Without any hesitation, I printed the document out and in my binder it went, ready to be handed to the instructor. I checked also on our Power Point slides, but this one remained untouched and I was fine with that. I was transformed into the real life smiley emoticon; I couldn’t wipe the gleeful grin off my face even when I was soaping it in the shower. : ). At a time when I should feel stress and panic, I was glowing with excitement and wishful anticipation for that presentation. 

    I could hear chatters coming echoing in the hallway as I was about to enter the classroom. I made a timid entrance and only a few students noticed, Joos and Enne were among those. Our instructor was also present; she could have easily been mistaken for a student since she occupied a seat among us, leaving her hot seat for the leaders of each group. There was also a row of seats set up as to face the audience. I took a seat behind Joos whom turned to greet me. His bloodshot eyes left no doubt in my mind that he did not blink last night and that he was indeed the elf that sprinkled magic on our project. I wanted to thank him for that, but somehow I did not, I just smiled and said Hi. Enne was in another row and isolated herself from everyone; she had what I assumed was a copy of our report in her hands and seemed consumed by it. A few seconds after I noticed that all the other groups were huddled together (possibly assigning which member will be the first to speak) I realized that my group was not having such discussion. We were too cool for my liking and I started to fret but not to the point that I was nervous. Jemina arrived and made quite an impression; her high heels shoes were clacking very loudly, like a lone fiddler crab trying desperately to free itself from an aluminum bucket. She had a “oops” expression on her face when she sat next to Enne. Quickly after, I gathered my stuff and joined the girls, Joos did the same. We exchanged greetings and delved right into the debate of whom will take the forefront of the group, and how many of us will actually address the audience. It didn’t take us long before we settled on that each member will speak [and in this specific order : Joos opens up with an executive summary, I am to follow up with some general information about that country, then Jemina will present some of the features of the resort, Joos is to introduce his section, which will make us stand apart from any business of that type in the area, Enne is responsible for the laws and regulations we’d need to take into consideration, I resurface and share some cultural/social elements that would help our business thrive abroad along with some financial budget and tables. Lastly, Joos would wrap up with yet another summary]. We all looked confident and ready.

     “OK class, whenever you’re ready. Which group would like to present first?” our instructor asked. “That’d be us” said one of our classmates, her hand eagerly aloft and calling upon the other members of her group to stand up. They positioned themselves in front of the class and all of us were applauding them copiously. In my opinion their presentation was quite good, the theme was around food services, and the type of clientele they’d cater, made their idea very unique. And thanks to one of the members’ culinary skills, they were able to have us sample some of the goods they’d provide. After inviting the class to ask any question to the group, our instructor made a few comments and particularly congratulated them on their original concept; which made me ponder about how she would have reacted to our project had Joos not voiced his intelligent remark and suggestion during the meeting we had that previous Saturday. While my mind was still skipping I could hear the teacher pointing out to the group that just finished presenting that they would have done so much better if the other members were as proactive as their leader was during the presentation. As it turned out, only her did all the talking, the others were merely filling the seats and smiling all throughout the lecture. ...And that, my dear readers, was one mistake the following group did not plan on making. ;)

As always, thanks for reading. 

~Snoopyboy (: