Presenting paper in a conference - an experience

Last wednesday, came back to the office after taking a few days off. Received a call from UiTM saying that one of the journal paper that my group (me, mai & anum) prepared was selected by the committe to be presented in the parallel session during the global biz conference in the uni next week. I know Mai won't be presenting as she'll be happily touring London and Paris at that time. Called anum and tell her about it, she asked me to present....hmmm...as always lah. Setakat present kat uni ni...hmmm I'm ok with it but a bit malas to review the slides tapi ku gagahi jua reviewing and re-arranging the slides into something that I am comfortable enough to present it. How come this paper got accepted? If I were the selection committee, I won't consider this paper..hahaha..hmm...I've got nothing to wear but who cares?

Come the day of the presentation, reached there around 9 for registration & opening remarks from Dr FH and that African guy. Actually we didn't register because the committe asked us to go straight into the auditorium because the registration is on the upper level. So ok, we just go into the auditorium and after the opening remarks we were ushered to the upper level for registration. Met Dr NA our thesis advisor, she asked us about the result and she's happy because we can make it to the end of the course.

At first,I wasn't actually understand what does it mean with parallel session. A parellel session is a 20 minutes-presentation for academician or students to partially present their PhD paper or to present journal paper for publication. The purpose of the presentation is to get as many comments as possible from the facilitator or the audience in order for them to proceed with their PhD thesis. Oooo...I thought for PhD, we just do it all out and only present once during the defence session. Wow! they actually have to pay & attend these kind of conference in order to get comments/views from different people in different uni. No wonder it takes 4 years! I don't think I want to do PhD lah...

The presenters for the parellel session was divided into a few sessions in 5 different rooms. My session is at 10.45 - 11.45 am and there are 3 papers to be presented in that session. Mine was the first one in that 10.45 session. I think we are the only one with journal paper, the rest was doing their PhD papers. I think my presentation was the fastest one...hehe...well it wasn't as comprehensive as PhD thesis! Got a few questions from participants from India (can't remember what uni was it but they reminded me of Shenkar GEMS), Mr Reza (an Iranian guy), Dr SAR & Dr RM. Me as usual, confidently kelentong some of the answers but who cares! Well, we were the ones that doing the paper and we know better...hahaha.

It went pretty well actually. What an experience!