Meeeeehhhhh.

It is Thursday afternoon. I’ve survived.

I just have one task left before me. I have that speech class again on Friday. I haven’t been ready for the past two classes. Sometimes I think I could pull this together. But the moment I start thinking about what I could do, or how I could put it together, I just shut down a little. The hardest part here is the actual process of creating a visual aid. I keep trying to think of something I could do that would require a very easy to make visual aid. Or, better yet, something that doesn’t need to be made – something I already have.

And then there’s the whole talking for ten minutes. Ten minutes? I really don’t know how other people memorize all this stuff and then go up and rattle stuff off. My mind goes blank in front of other people. I can’t think on the spot at all. AT ALL. I feel helpless and moronic. Why can’t I just do this?

Oh right, I know why.

If I were to do this, now would be the time. Yes! Now. … I have absolutely no idea what I’m going to do.

Do something you love. Talk about weight lifting. Bring in weights.

well, i don’t expect you to be able to talk about a KEYBOARD for 10 minutes. sheesh, i missed the part about how long it had to be. okay, i can do this… you should take all the ingrediants for chocolate no-bake cookies. then explain how to make them, while making them right there. while you’re mixing some of the ingrediants, talk about where the recipe came from. how it is thought that the man who created the recipe was trying to get out of fixing his wife’s oven. make them laugh at your amusing presumtion of how they came to be, then make them cry with the deliciousness of the food. it’s unique, fun and useful.

you can come up with Timmy’s Ten Steps to a Successful Speech. Put them on a posterboard, and discuss each step in detail. step one: panic. step two: procrastinate step three: agonize step four: rationalize step five: brainstorm etc. it would be funny, since you’ll be relating to every single person in the class that had to give a speech, and it’s cool in the sense that the subject discusses the very thing you don’t want to do, by doing what you don’t want to do.

for the first step, you can say: Step One: Panic. (pause for laughter) freaking out is more productive than you might think. experiencing your fears about something helps you in the planning process. you can avoid mistakes more easily when you visualize the mistakes you are likely to make.

OR take a roll of toilet paper. stand in front of the class and hold it up, proclaiming, “this is one of the most important accessories in the world. (pause for laughter.) so-and-so invented the toilet paper roll in such-and-such date, and since then we have use, and exploited, it’s purpose more fully than any other paper product in existence. it has it’s obvious purposes. and then there arethe subtle ones. lipstick blotting, nose blowing, and the commonly practiced tp-ing of homes.” then you can talk about how it has contributed to our hygene, and what the world would be like without it, drawing references to 18th century england.

*hug* I hate it to. People can do it because they are usually familiar enough with what they are giving the speech on that with the help of notecards it’s not difficult to do. With the council I am on, and with the board I hope to be on, I find myself pushed more and more into public speaking. I really can’t decide anymore if I hate it or if I like the rush I get from it when I hear peoplegiving nice comments on it. Good luck… Rose Hmmmm… I suppose foreskin restoration is a bit too personal to talk about for your speech?