Toastmasters

I did it! I did my first speech!

The group was really small tonight, which was just as well because, even though I was fine all day, I was really nervous when I walked in. I felt under-prepared, too... the other person who went was my friend Chrissy, who I met last week, and while we were waiting for the meeting to begin she was going over pages and pages of notes to figure out what to take out so that her speech wouldn't be too long.

Me, I had one typed page and a few notes on the next page that spilled over.

Plus i didn't actually finish writing my outline until this afternoon, about two hours before I had to leave. I just felt it would all come together.

Chrissy went first. Her speech was really really good. Honestly, I thought it was better than mine. Mine was very straightforward for the most part. Hers was more... clever... and I thought she knew better what she was saying.

When it was my turn I was shaking a little. I remembered to shake the Toastmaster's hand and looked at my notes real quick, because i couldn ot remember how I had planned to begin.

As I spoke, it did seem to come together. Things started coming to me. I thought I spoke well, but all too soon the Timer held up the paper to let me know I only had two minutes left, and I was still talking about childhood. I hurried through adolescence to adulthood, talked very briefly about LA and my relationship with Dave, then concluded.

There was so much more I wanted to say... I had wanted to talk about my baptism and about some of my experiences in LA and such.

But when evaluation time came, the evaluator loved it! He said it was the best organized speech he'd ever heard, that the content was on target, and he loved my delivery. The only thing he suggested was not squeezing the lecturn all the time.

Chrissy's husband spoke during Table Topics. I almost wished I hadn't done a speech, because one of the Table Topics was "talk about the person who most inspired you," which would have been my chance to say all those things about Dave that I didn't get to say in my speech because I ran out of time. But speechmakers were not supposed to do Table Topics so I didn't get to do that :(

Anyway, after he spoke, this lady got chosen to speak about "My Most Embarrasing Moment". I loved her speech. She stared out by saying that she didn't have an embarrassing moment and she wished the topic was "My Best Birthday." Then she said, "Well, since I have a best birthday, that's what I'm takling about," and told a very funny story about spending her birthday by herself at the circus. She even tied it in to the actual topic by saying she was embarrassed at how big she was when she looked at her picture with the clown.

She and Chrissy's husband tied for Best Table Topic Speaker. I hoped Chrissy would get Best Speaker, because I thought it would be neat for her and her husband to both get ribbons. That's exactly what happened.

Afterwards we all walked out together. Chrissy doesn't like the awards system because she feels it detracts from the supportiveness of the group, which is its stated goal. I kind of agree with her. I mean, I was actually rooting for her to win the ribbon.. I thoguht she was better prepared and made a better speech. But some people would have been upset that someone else won. Plus, she pointed out that having her husband there meant she had an automatic vote for herself, which is true... after all, if Dave was still here and had made it out to Fayetteville, I have no doubt he would have voted for me. He always was my cheerleading section.

I don't know. I think the voting is kind of neat... a little extra confirmation that you're doing well, but certainly not something that's necessary. At the same time, I don't like it when competition turns ugly or interferes with people doing their best for the sake of doing a good job.

In any case, no sooner did I get home than I heard a plantiative meow, and there was my black cat whom I haven't seen in two weeks.

I can't help thinking as always that he has something to do with Dave.. that he came around to let me know that Dave knew what I did and was proud of me.