Journal 5

My final presentation went super well! I was extremely nervous at first because I was worried no one would really be interested. You have to like horses in the least way to care about taking care of them, and I certainly understand this, so it scared me to know that some people might think my senior exhibit was extremely boring and it was just a waste of 30 minutes while they could be doing homework or playing a game on their laptop. However, it didn’t really matter if they were interested or not because they were still going to have to listen to me talk about it no matter what. I had English right before my presentation and I could hardly concentrate because I was nervous about how it would go and I was so ready to get it over with as well. I got out of class a little bit early to head to Mr. Reed’s room so I could set up.
Due to my computer crashing, I lost the video I had created that I showed to the 5th graders for my application, but I still had the power point that I had made. Thankfully, I decided to use a program that is on the internet instead of just doing regular power point and saving it on my hard drive.. or else I would have been completely out of luck with no presentation! Anyways, I had created notes so that I had an outline of what I wanted to start off talking about and all the things I wanted to say so that I didn’t forget. I took what Mrs. Blashford, Mrs. Hunley and Mrs. Hoppel had said from rehearsal and changed the things they thought I should add/remove. They had given me really great feedback and showed me things about my presentation that I had never previously thought about. It really helped me pull together my final presentation and feel confident about what I was presenting to my peers without all the stress of being graded and having 25 people in the room watching you. (AKA I think the rehearsal with a few teachers was a GREAT idea!)
Anyways, back to my final presentation… all I had to do was hook up my computer and get prepared to show the slideshow and then lay out the tools I had and poster I made. I brought in some bandages, vet wrap, syringes, ointment, thermometers, a stethoscope and a tool called hoof testers for everyone to see. I also created a bulletin board with pictures of me riding when I was little to show everyone just how much horses and helping them means to me. I got this idea from the suggestion of teachers during my rehearsal so that I could give a better reason as to why I chose this topic. The board also had a coggins (which as I explained in my presentation is like a physical for horses) and a few other mementos from riding I have such as the stall tag I had from when I showed in Lexington at state finals. It has the horses name, rider and owner name, contact numbers, vet and hotel numbers, etc. so if anything were to happen to the horse while it is staying overnight at the show grounds people would know how to help it.
After setting up, I just had to wait for people to arrive so I could get started. As soon as they did, I began and started off with showing the power point. I went right into why I did this, what I did and where, what I learned, etc. I had most of my pictures from the summer and then from my application in the power point, and then I showed them the tools I had brought in and asked them if they could guess what the clamps or “hoof testers” were. I believe Jonathon answered and he actually was pretty close.. most people think they are for pulling out teeth or something. It seemed that the teachers and the seniors were the most interested and active ones during the presentation, but that is understandable. They are the ones who are more understanding of what we are going through while we are up there presenting. Overall, I think the presentation went well and those that I talked to afterwards seemed to really like it. I felt so much better after it was over and could not have asked for it to go any smoother.