I Pit My Public Speaking Performance

Mundane Pointless Stuff I Must Share (MPSIMS)
#1

This is a pity party. If you don’t like pity parties, go away.

I had to give a presentation to my class tonight, and do the words “Babbling Idiot” mean anything to you?

I’ve had to do public speaking before and, hey, no problem! I’m a little nervous at first and then I usually settle down and give a pretty good performance (IMO). But tonight I couldn’t get ideas or words to form in my head to save my life. I said “uh” and “um” so many times you would have thought I was doing a George W. Bush impersonation.

Tip: If you say you have a “brain freeze” during a public presentation you are in trouble.

After the class a girl told me that I had a good speaking voice, like Tom Brokaw, and that she was more intent on listening to me speak as opposed to what I was saying. In spite of appreciating the sentiment this didn’t make me feel a whole lot better.
Oh, did I mention that this was a group presentation and I was batting clean up? One of my group members thanked me for taking up time.

sigh

On the plus side I talked to the professor after the class and she said I got an A, so what I was trying to say must have got through, but man, my performance sucked.

#2

The Pit is a really bad place for a pity party. No matter how upset with yourself you are at the moment, Asylum, why take the chance of having others dump on you too?
Off to MPSIMS…

#3

Ummm…But you, uh got like an A? Right?

Uhhh, ummm…

I’m ah, supposed to, ummm, pity the ahhh, fact, that you ummm, got an A?
Maybe?

#4

Feeling for you, Asylum.

I had to give part of a speech/debate thing in class yesterday. I’d ignored the jitters all day. I thought I had my facts down cold. I thought so wrong.

For about 30 seconds I was doing fine, not holding eye contact with my audience but not blatantly reading the speech, either. Then the adrenaline rush hit. Trembling, trying to not let me voice crack, blinded by the paranoia that I was doing terribly and unable to focus on what I was trying to say. Coaxed myself to get through it, get through it. “Stop trying to make eye contact with the crowd because you keep losing your place. If you can’t hear yourself talking, you don’t know if what you say makes any sense to the listeners. Oh, crap, did you just skip a line? Don’t read it in case you didn’t skip it, elsewise you’ll sound like a major ass.” And so on for two or three more minutes. Finally, finished.

The professor said I did fine. OTOH, he agreed to let us work on an option so I can avoid the 5 to 7 minute oral report due in two weeks. Thank Og.

#5

Meh. You got an A, dude!