So I successfully presented my research to my department (or at least those who bothered to show up) earlier today. Only about 1/4 of the department actually bothered to come. Which was fine with me, except I was kind of looking forward to showing all their graduate students where the bar should be. Other than talking too quickly, I did a good job. I was able to effectively answer all of the questions (they were a lot easier than I had anticipated). And my advisor (and I) got a nice compliment from one of the faculty members in the audience. He had started it by asking me what part of my research I had actually done… I think he was attempting to try and show that most of the work had been done by someone else for me. Fortunately for me, I was able to say everything but the synthesis of compounds that had been previously synthesized in our laboratory. His only response was along the lines that my advisor had set the bar high for not only master’s students but doctoral students as well. We’ll just have to see what my committee has to say about my research tomorrow.