life, apparently

That's my other problem - I am the biggest exaggerator ever! (see what I mean) When I tell stories, teach, or just have a conversation I tend to speak in extremes. When I give standard talks, I do not exaggerate, I just tell the facts. However a job talk is a different beast - it is very general, glossing over the details that make up my days. Part of the goal is to appeal to an incredibly diverse audience and get them excited about your work. My area is very technical relative to the other areas in my department, so I have to present a sort of cartoon version of what I do. This puts me in story-telling mode and I exaggerate. The title - I actually said that in my most recent job talk and I suddenly realized that maybe my style, while obviously very clear to everyone in the audience (and I know this from the questions, etc) may encourage people to think that I am not fully versed in the literature. They may think that I really believe the extremes to be The Truth and I'm not aware of all the minutia because I do not appropriately hedge. That of course is false, I exaggerate to make my point very clear given the composition of the audience. Anyway, it is all over now and I.just.don't.care.anymore.