mizChartreuse!

When I first went away to college and lived at the dorms at NIU, I could function on very little sleep, talking to people like Natalie and Scott on AIM all night and playing pranks on my floormates. It’s only been a few years, but my horrid, erratic sleep habits have finally caught up with me!

I was on campus ’til 10 p.m. last night working on my thesis presentation for the Undergrad Creative Research Expo. I got home about 11:30 via CTA and wrapped my project around 4 a.m., perfecting my slides and notes.

Since I had to be back on campus around 8-8:30ish (meaning I’d have to hop the train by 7-ish), I knew I’d better just stay awake instead of going to sleep. Because I WOULD sleep through my alarm and the entire presentation, inevitably. Most definitely.

I texted my friend Tom, telling him I was taking the bus and train and a cab back to campus. “I’ll be there at 8:30-8:45-ish, if you could let the prof know that’d rock. I didn’t sleep at all! I’m so tired I’m shaking.” I was. I was woozy and jittery and regretting the two cups of coffee I’d had, feeling as though I was going to either keel over or throw up from the lack of sleep. The night before I’d slept about, oh, four hours. AWESOME.

Needless to say, I was having a rough time staying alert during the presentations before me, but when my  turn came to present, I was so stoked because I was excited about my subject matter: blogging. Obviously.

And obviously, I choked. 

What the fuck? Obviously? 

I don’t know what happened, but the first 30 seconds went well where I was showcasing dooce, Blog it Out, Bitch, mizChartreuse.com, and Review Chicago. But once I moved onto the PowerPoint presentation part, a switch just turned off in my brain and I completely bombed. Nervous laughter, stumbling over words, pregnant pauses–total brain fart. Total. And it was being filmed. The camerawoman should have just turned it off.

CAMAAAAAAN.

Seriously, I’m one of the most confident people ever, and I know about blogging. Blogging and writing are pretty much the ONLY things I know about. And I love to talk about myself, obviously. So what the hell happened?

I think it was my four hours of sleep in the last 48 hours, coupled with the fact that the belt on my jacket was one notch too tight. I just lost it and it was a total joke. TOTAL.

TOTAL.

My best comparison is Britney Spears’ performance at the 2007 VMAs. The bad hair, erratic dancing, deer in headlights lost look. She was just on another planet.

But it’s okay. I’ll have my COMEBACK. Circus/Womanizer style for sure.

Thankfully we will be doing our same presentations (with a longer time allotment, I believe) directly in our class, so I get a chance to redeem myself. Cuz that, whatever that was this morning, was RIDICULOUS.

RIDIC.