speech

These words were written the upper portion of my 3" x 5" index card. For a person who hates to speak in public, that was a memorable 3 minutes and 58 seconds of her life.

It all happened last Friday. My first ever impromptu speech. I was able to speak in front of my classmates as I stood on a platform. If this was not a requirement in CommIII, I would not dare to have a speech.

After my instructor had called my name to be the next speaker, I felt how my heart beats fast. It's time. Pick a topic.

Political dynasties in the Philippines. With my index card and pencil on hand, I began writing anything related to that. Writing in an impulse. I was not able to listen to the person ahead of me. Write, write, write... It only took her 3 minutes to speak in front; but I was still not finished writing keywords about the things that I should impart on my speech. I faced the public partially unprepared.

It took a minute of my speech before my nervousness calmed down. My hands were shaking and I spoke with a lot of verbal fillers during that minute. (My most common verbal filler is "uhmm...") The good thing is, I was able to recover my composure after the first dreadful minute. Then, all thoughts written on my notes are used up, so I began speaking anything that comes out of my mind. (That is better than discussing what I have written. My real self speaks out without any pretension.) I was not looking at my index card at all. I was able to introduce and conclude the speech in an acceptable way.

Once you speak in front, you'll forget some the things you learned, as well as the ideas that you should have imparted to the audience. You will forget some things or even everything when you are nervous. After my speech, I realized that I skipped some thoughts that I prepared and wrote on my index card. At least my mind did not go blank.