Praise from a terse man

I gave a presentation, about a week ago, to the small group I meet with on Mondays. We discuss papers related to our shared research interest. I had read many of them before but I still learned a lot by hearing my adviser comment on the results. It was certainly annoying to have to make a presentation when I had so much work to do in lab. It was annoying to give up sleep time but the result was worth it. The presentation went so well. I think it began on a great note because after the title, my adviser asked me if I knew what the Urochardata organism was. I could answer yes and that my next slide was all about them because I had to research what they were to put their unique muscle regulation into context. They are a super-bizarre organism that begins their life as a tadpole-like swimming organism with a single eye. They later anchor themselves to a sea floor surface and begin the sedentary stage of their life by digesting their ganglion (equivalent of the human brain). They are also known as the Sea Squirt, perhaps you have heard of them. While reading about them, I read reviews that they are eaten in Asia but taste like "rubber dipped in ammonia." It was funny, that my adviser's wife mentioned that they are delicious (my not having mentioned they are eaten).

After the presentation, my adviser complemented how great the presentation had been. Complements from Japanese men are especially-rare. This alone would have been nice but he then later kept saying it to me/ everyone in lab back when we were in the office. It was nice. :-) I'm glad I made sacrifices in my recreation and sleep time for such a positive result. Upon first read-through of the paper, I found it poorly-written/ unclear about the links between topics because they kept changing the names of the protein/ organism. I was exhausted by my whole experience here and annoyed by the added work of a presentation that I was so tempted to blow it off.