old slave
FELIS RESPICIENS
So true, so true ... you have obviously been there! At least the criticism from the crowd part usually doesn't amount to jeers and catcalls ... or maybe it does ... just in a veiled, cloaked beneath the surface, academic way
Yes, been there, got the T-shirt and the (mental) scars to prove it.
And while I'm trying to rember all the valid points in 15mins, and not drop my papers or the mike or the pointer and hope the slides (remember those) are not upside down, the smiling academic in the front row has 15mins to think of a cutting remark which will earn him a G&T and a "that put the upstart down, what old boy" in the bar at night. The same bar the 'upstart' has to smoose in to get his next (tempoary) job.