Chathuranga said his wife didn’t feel well, so he needed to take care of his wife. Therefore, I went to the gym alone, and this is the first time I went to gym alone.

After that, I did the homework 3 of Rock Mechanics and assignment 7 of FEM. They are really time-consuming.

I played the game for about 1 hour tonight, it’s boring but I didn’t have any energy to do anything else.

By the way, I forgot to update my task items, and I just copied from Amir and pasted on my sheet. However, I didn’t agree with his tasks, so I had to admit I copied from him.

There will be a quiz tomorrow, so today I spent a lot of time reviewing the materials. I hope I can do well in the quiz.

Jain said he would have an #experiment for me in summer, which is from the industry. So I can get some money from it. That’s good news. I hope I can do well in the experiment and get some money.

I also grabbed a cup of coffee with my classmate; I hope I can sleep well tonight, don’t get insomnia again.

I finally finished an assignment for my Finite Element Method (FEM) course. However, I fell into the trap of tinkering with my editor and software again until 5 PM. It’s a habit I really need to break, as it consumes too much of my productive time.

In the evening, I braised some pork ribs with yam and lotus root for tomorrow’s lunch. Afterward, I spent about an hour scrolling on my phone before calling it a night.

Our regular group meeting at noon was uneventful. Started learning about Typst and FEM, then began studying VIM. After dinner at home, continued learning VIM. This editor is incredibly difficult to use.

There was the group meeting today, and I don’t like it due to my sensitivity. But it’s useful to let me face my sensitivity and change it.

I always thought others will judge me for my ability or my behaviors. I knew that was not right, but I can’t control it sometimes.

Amir gave me a great support, and I really appreciate him. I think I shouldn’t always emit the negative aspect to others. I need to change my mind and be brave.

Don’t assume or suspicious others will judge you first.

Notes from Gemini

https://youtu.be/fzIxD1jXn44?si=4COr4Hyzf7bhtwQX

Here are notes summarizing the key points and phrases from the video “How to Give a Presentation - Business English.”

1. Introducing Yourself and Your Topic

You need to establish who you are and what you are talking about immediately. Adjust your language based on the formality of the situation.

• Introducing Yourself:
  • Formal: “Good morning everyone. For those who don’t know me, my name is [Name] and I work in [Department].” or “Before we begin, let me introduce myself briefly. I’m [Name]…” [01:01]
  • Informal: “Hi guys, if you don’t know me, I’m [Name]…” or “I see some new faces so I’ll introduce myself first.” [01:18]
• Introducing the Topic:
  • Simple Topic: “Today I’m going to be talking about…” or “I’d like to talk to you today about…” [01:45]
  • Complex Topic (Roadmap): Break it down into stages. “I’ll begin by outlining… and then I’ll go on to highlight… Finally, I’ll briefly discuss…” [02:10]

2. Engaging the Audience

Good speakers work hard to earn attention; bad speakers assume they already have it. Use these three techniques to hook your audience early on:

• Establish a Problem & Solution: Connect a boring topic to the audience’s pain points.
  • Example: “Have you ever felt unfairly treated at work? … We’ve been working on new policies to ensure fair recognition.” [05:22]
• Mention a Surprising Fact or Statistic: Grab attention with data.
  • Example: “Did you know that the average office worker only does four hours of productive work a day?” [06:06]
• Tell a Short Story: Stories add an emotional dimension.
  • Example: “I once met a young salesman…” [06:34]

3. Organizing Your Presentation (Signposting)

“Signposting” uses specific phrases to show the audience where you are in the presentation. It follows the rule: Tell them what you’re going to say, say it, then tell them what you said. [07:44]

• Moving to the next point:
  • “Next I’d like to talk about…”
  • “Let’s move on and discuss…”
  • “At this point, I’d like to turn to…” [10:28]
• Adding detail:
  • “Let me go into some more detail about…”
  • “Let’s examine [topic] in more depth.” [10:54]
• Concluding/wrapping up:
  • “To wrap up, let’s remind ourselves…”
  • “Let’s review the key points from this session.” [11:04]

4. Dealing with Problems

Things often go wrong. Use these phrases to recover smoothly without panicking.

• If you lose your place / forget a word:
  • “Where was I?”
  • “So, what was I saying?”
  • “What’s the word in English again?” (Look at your cue cards instead of staying silent). [13:15]
• If you make a mistake:
  • “Let me rephrase that.”
  • “Actually, what I meant to say is…”
  • “To clarify, I wanted to say that…” [13:51]
• If you forgot to mention something important:
  • “Let me just add one more thing.”
  • “Let me return to an earlier point briefly.” [14:15]

5. Handling Difficult Questions

Use the “Three D’s” strategy when you can’t (or don’t want to) answer a question immediately.

• Delay: Give yourself time to research or think.
  • “I’ve allocated time for questions at the end…”
  • “I’m not in a position to answer that right now, but I’ll get back to you later.” [14:52]
• Deflect: Pass the question to someone else.
  • “That’s an interesting question. Before I answer, I’d like to know what’s your take on this?” [15:20]
• Dismiss: If the question is irrelevant.
  • “Thanks for your input, but I don’t see how that’s connected to what I’m saying.”
  • “I don’t mean to be blunt, but I don’t think that’s relevant to today’s discussion.” [15:49]
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Last week and weekend was better than the week before last week. I got better sleep, Although most of time it’s through the help of melatonin, and now I’ve been trying sleep without melatonin. It’s harmful for me if I relied it for a long term.

Last Saturday, Dr. Zhao and I went to Jollibee near the West Edmonton Mall to eat fried chicken. It’s really good and satisfactory.

Study

Last week was a busy week, and I found that I couldn’t fall asleep well. I got insomnia last Thursday.

It was a strength that the more I wanted to fall asleep, the more I couldn’t sleep, especially when I forced myself to sleep.

I told Amir this was the same reason for learning English; the more I wanted to learn English well, the more I couldn’t.

The critical key is enjoying, decreasing the expectation, I think I will get better.

Study

I have been absent from the group meeting for two weeks. Recently, I have still been focusing on the class. The assignments become more difficult over time, especially the Sensing Techniques and Data Analysis. Some knowledge previously learned I need to study again.

This week, I also have many things to do.

上上周因为周一放假，导致周例会推迟到周二，但是周二有课参加不了。

最近感觉都在忙于上课和写作业，作业总是会碰到各种各样的问题。我采矿的第一次作业，因为不熟悉系统，没有点击提交按钮，导致分数被扣了50%，非常伤心。这也使我变得更加后来更加谨慎。上周发现传感器技术的项目数据存在一些问题，和老师沟通了两天后老师发布了新的数据。这些问题也使我卡了很久。

这周完成了一个采矿作业，项目的进度也有所推进，接下来几天会更加忙碌

对了，我参加了一个培训项目，需要每周去上课两小时，主要侧重于提升学术能力和表达能力，我想我还是挺需要的。

23:56 关于生活

每天都感觉很累，感觉能量有点不够用的样子。上周五去参加了一个新生和老生的mixer，人非常多，是我会害怕的场面。会上有一个游戏，bingo，我会得到一张卡片，卡片上写着一些特征，我需要找到这些特征的人给我签名。我一开始并不敢去和别人打交道，矗立了一会儿，有人过来找我，我内心害怕又激动。这改变了我，我想我应该鼓起勇气去完成这个bingo卡片，况且可能还有奖励 🎉。

最终，我顺利的和大约20人打了招呼，并成功得到了他们的签名，内心的恐惧有好了一些。我想任何一点点的改变都是非常重要的，感谢Amir带我经常去融入各种我自己一个人不会融入的场合。

23:48 About Academics

Two weeks ago, because Monday was a holiday, our weekly meeting was postponed to Tuesday — but I couldn’t attend since I had class that day.

Lately, I’ve been busy with lectures and assignments, and I keep running into all sorts of problems with my coursework. For my first mining assignment, I wasn’t familiar with the submission system and forgot to click the “Submit” button, which cost me 50% of my grade — it was really discouraging. But it also made me more cautious afterwards.

Last week, I found some issues with the data for the sensor technology project. After two days of communicating with the instructor, the professor released a new dataset. These issues delayed my progress quite a bit.

This week, I finished a mining assignment, and my project has also made some progress. The next few days will be even busier.

Oh, and I joined a training program that requires two hours of class each week. It mainly focuses on improving academic and communication skills — something I really feel I need.

23:56 About Life

I’ve been feeling tired every day lately, like I don’t have enough energy. Last Friday, I went to a mixer event for new and returning students. There were a lot of people — the kind of setting that usually makes me anxious.

They had a game called Bingo. I received a card with different traits written on it, and I had to find people who matched those traits and get their signatures. At first, I was too nervous to approach anyone and just stood there awkwardly. Then someone came up to me — I felt scared but also excited. That moment changed me. I thought, “I should be brave and try to complete this bingo card — plus, there might even be a prize 🎉.”

In the end, I managed to talk to about 20 people and collected all their signatures. The fear inside me eased a little. I realized that even the smallest changes matter. I’m really thankful to Amir, who often encourages me to join activities I wouldn’t go to on my own.