Class began when the professor closed the door and introduced the day to us. Almost everyone was accounted for. Except for one student. I glanced over at the empty seat next to me; the seat belonging to our fourth group mate. I then made eye contact with my two present group mates, and we all pulled out our phones and began to text our fourth guy to see where he was. We got no responses.
Twenty minutes passed, and the first group of presenters stepped up to the front of the class. Their presentation on ancient Indian astronomy was flawless. The next group was just as perfect as the first group. After them, it was our turn. Forty minutes into the class, our group mate was still missing and hadn’t replied to any of our texts.
“Uhhhh… Professor?” I began as I stood up with my laptop, “One of our guy’s missing. What shou-”
“Just do your best to cover for him.” she interrupted me, “I’ll email him and have him send me a recording of him doing his part. If you have to skip his slides, that’s okay. But, I think you guys should at least read his bullet-points.”
The three of us nodded and stepped up to the front of the classroom. I set my laptop down on the side table up by the projector screen and found the cable to connect my laptop to the overhead projector. As soon as I inserted the cable into my laptop, the projector screen flickered and displayed a bright, blue screen. The dreaded Blue Screen of Death.
“Oh, no, no, no, no!” I silently screamed to myself as I stared, wide-eyed at the class. All I could do to maintain what little courage I had left was laugh, shrugging my shoulders, playing it off as some sort of joke. Thankfully, the professor was quick to get up and tap the base of the projector till it displayed the slides I had on my laptop. Crisis averted.
Because my slides were first, we were using my laptop to present to the class, and our missing partner’s slides were immediately after mine, I had to talk for the next six minutes while trying my damn best to come off as charismatic and chill as possible. Based on how everyone else was reacting, I was doing something right. Everyone was engaged with what I was saying, and giggled at my occasional self-deprecating joke about the technical difficulties we’d endured just moments earlier. I had no script, yet I somehow knew what to say and how to say it. But, those were the longest six minutes of my life, that I somehow survived. Even better, I was sick as a dog and on the verge of puking, but somehow managed to suppress all of that completely, maintaining an excited tone of voice.
My other two group mates presented their parts as well as they could. But, they were clearly shaking and having a hard time getting through their material. In fact, every now and then, they’d glance up at me, looking for guidance. All I could do was give a slight nod, which seemed to encourage them to keep going. Four minutes later, it was over. And, the three of us walked back to our seats while the class clapped and showered us with praise.
As the fourth group presented, my group mates leaned in towards me and thanked me for “being the chill one”, and “saving our asses and our grades”. On the surface, I took the compliments and replied, “anytime!”. But, just below that fake, confident facade, I felt sicker than ever and wanted so badly to leave. Also, how the fuck did I manage to stay so calm despite the mishaps and my terror of the presentation alone? And, how was I the calm, collected, confident one?! Why was I suddenly the de-facto leader? How the hell did that all go so right?
I still don’t have any answers to those questions. Though, I’m pretty sure my life experiences have a lot to do with my ability to stay calm, collected, and logical on the surface when a situation calls for it. I mean, it wasn't like I had all of the time in the world to decide between dying a horrible death by Pseudomonas or spraying phage viruses up my nose (and possibly still dying an even more horrible death). And, don't even get me started on Denver drivers (or the Ken Caryl wildlife)!
Yet, out of all the times I've faced death and survived only because I made the right decision in record time, I've never been more terrified than I was leading the group presentation on Mayan Astronomy on that Monday afternoon (even though the risk of dying during that presentation was zero). I don't fear death. But, I am so damn terrified of people, especially when I have to stand up in front of them to give a graded presentation with a missing group member and a projector that almost self-destructed when I (and only I) plugged in my laptop.
