Miracles
Miracles still happen.
Last Wednesday was the day for the first speeches in my communications class and I’m still alive and well.
The speech was supposed to be an informative speech, 4-6 minutes in length. I had decided that I would inform my class what O & S has to offer them: a quality storage building. A requirement of the class is that we use PowerPoint on one of our presentations and since I had pictures, etc. that I could show them, I chose to use PowerPoint on my informative speech instead of the persuasive speech that will come later this semester.
I created my presentation and on Monday or Tuesday, I e-mailed my teacher and asked him if the computer there could handle a USB drive. He didn’t know but said that if I wanted to wait until the second group (they’ll do theirs this week), I could. I said that would be fine. I took off work at 1:00 like I usually do on Wednesdays and came home to finish up even though I wouldn’t have to give it. I decided to go prepared just in case a bunch of others weren’t ready, and I didn’t really want to have to dwell on it another week.
I worked on the presentation up until I had to leave and, as a last minute thought, I burned the presentation onto CD and stuck it into my backpack. I still hadn’t rehearsed the thing completely, so on the way to school, I stumbled through it. I was horrified to find that it was taking me closer to ten minutes and there was no modifying it. I figured that I could cut out a little bit of unnecessary talk and was pretty sure that during the actual presentation, I would speak faster than I normally do.
We got into class and Mr. Y asked if there were any volunteers to go first. Complete silence. So he randomly picked a name and the girl got up and gave, actually she read, her speech. And she went WAY past 4-6 minutes. Mr. Y called another name and that person gave their speech. And then, “Sharon”….
AAAHHHH….I wanted to dash out of the room and never return, but I coolly said, “If I can get my presentation to work, I’ll go.” He obviously had forgotten he’d given me permission to go the following week. Now, it’s dangerous business to look at your PowerPoint in the speech location for the first time in front of a group of people. One bad thing was the lighting situation. It was either light or no light. I had tried to take that into account when choosing the colors I used but it still doesn’t prepare you.
I grabbed my CD, totally forgetting the brochures I had planned to give out and the key chains I had planned to give away, and headed to the front of the room. As I passed by him, Brandon, whose last name I butchered on the first day of class, sweetly asked if I would like for him to turn off the half of the lights that we could turn off. I gratefully accepted the offer.
I stuck my CD into the drive and, after battling an error message, got the presentation to come up. I then had to come back around the desk to the podium to give the presentation. Just as I came around to the podium, Mr. Y spilled his root beer. “That’s why they don’t want you to bring drinks into class,” he said. He told me to hang on while he went after paper towels, so I got to stand there and smile, somewhat painfully, at the class. He came back, placed the paper towels on the puddle, and told me to go ahead.
I looked up at my presentation and guess what?? The fonts and font sizes on the presentation had changed. It looked so much better the other way. It threw me for a bit of a loop but I forged ahead.
The setup was very awkward. As I faced the room, I had to use my left hand to operate the mouse and, being right-handed, I always wanted to use the wrong mouse button to bring up the next slide. I would look to my left, hit the mouse button, look over my right shoulder to make sure I was still in tune with my slides as I gave my different points. So I was constantly turning my head back and forth, trying to make eye contact, trying to control the shake in my hand, trying to control the shake in my voice, trying to drum up some saliva so I could swallow, trying follow my note cards to make sure I hit each point, AND trying not to look like a scared rabbit!!
My prevailing thought during this whole process has been, “Remember what Dad says, ‘When in doubt, bluff it!’” I bluffed the best I could but don’t think I did too good of a job. “Any questions?” I said brightly at the end. Dead silence…just what I wanted; I sure didn’t want to stand around up there answering any questions. Amid the thundering applause (as loudly fourteen people can thunder), I ejected my CD, helped the next girl put her CD in, and retreated to my seat.
I had taken a bottle of Sierra Mist to class with me and it was a good thing. My mouth was so dry you could almost have heard my mouth crackle as I opened it. The bottle was nearly full when I got to my seat and I think it was almost empty before the next person was done.
I just hope that Mr. Y had a good dose of mercy in his pocket that night. One thing I know for sure, God sure knew what He was doing when He didn’t make a man out of me!
Last Wednesday was the day for the first speeches in my communications class and I’m still alive and well.
The speech was supposed to be an informative speech, 4-6 minutes in length. I had decided that I would inform my class what O & S has to offer them: a quality storage building. A requirement of the class is that we use PowerPoint on one of our presentations and since I had pictures, etc. that I could show them, I chose to use PowerPoint on my informative speech instead of the persuasive speech that will come later this semester.
I created my presentation and on Monday or Tuesday, I e-mailed my teacher and asked him if the computer there could handle a USB drive. He didn’t know but said that if I wanted to wait until the second group (they’ll do theirs this week), I could. I said that would be fine. I took off work at 1:00 like I usually do on Wednesdays and came home to finish up even though I wouldn’t have to give it. I decided to go prepared just in case a bunch of others weren’t ready, and I didn’t really want to have to dwell on it another week.
I worked on the presentation up until I had to leave and, as a last minute thought, I burned the presentation onto CD and stuck it into my backpack. I still hadn’t rehearsed the thing completely, so on the way to school, I stumbled through it. I was horrified to find that it was taking me closer to ten minutes and there was no modifying it. I figured that I could cut out a little bit of unnecessary talk and was pretty sure that during the actual presentation, I would speak faster than I normally do.
We got into class and Mr. Y asked if there were any volunteers to go first. Complete silence. So he randomly picked a name and the girl got up and gave, actually she read, her speech. And she went WAY past 4-6 minutes. Mr. Y called another name and that person gave their speech. And then, “Sharon”….
AAAHHHH….I wanted to dash out of the room and never return, but I coolly said, “If I can get my presentation to work, I’ll go.” He obviously had forgotten he’d given me permission to go the following week. Now, it’s dangerous business to look at your PowerPoint in the speech location for the first time in front of a group of people. One bad thing was the lighting situation. It was either light or no light. I had tried to take that into account when choosing the colors I used but it still doesn’t prepare you.
I grabbed my CD, totally forgetting the brochures I had planned to give out and the key chains I had planned to give away, and headed to the front of the room. As I passed by him, Brandon, whose last name I butchered on the first day of class, sweetly asked if I would like for him to turn off the half of the lights that we could turn off. I gratefully accepted the offer.
I stuck my CD into the drive and, after battling an error message, got the presentation to come up. I then had to come back around the desk to the podium to give the presentation. Just as I came around to the podium, Mr. Y spilled his root beer. “That’s why they don’t want you to bring drinks into class,” he said. He told me to hang on while he went after paper towels, so I got to stand there and smile, somewhat painfully, at the class. He came back, placed the paper towels on the puddle, and told me to go ahead.
I looked up at my presentation and guess what?? The fonts and font sizes on the presentation had changed. It looked so much better the other way. It threw me for a bit of a loop but I forged ahead.
The setup was very awkward. As I faced the room, I had to use my left hand to operate the mouse and, being right-handed, I always wanted to use the wrong mouse button to bring up the next slide. I would look to my left, hit the mouse button, look over my right shoulder to make sure I was still in tune with my slides as I gave my different points. So I was constantly turning my head back and forth, trying to make eye contact, trying to control the shake in my hand, trying to control the shake in my voice, trying to drum up some saliva so I could swallow, trying follow my note cards to make sure I hit each point, AND trying not to look like a scared rabbit!!
My prevailing thought during this whole process has been, “Remember what Dad says, ‘When in doubt, bluff it!’” I bluffed the best I could but don’t think I did too good of a job. “Any questions?” I said brightly at the end. Dead silence…just what I wanted; I sure didn’t want to stand around up there answering any questions. Amid the thundering applause (as loudly fourteen people can thunder), I ejected my CD, helped the next girl put her CD in, and retreated to my seat.
I had taken a bottle of Sierra Mist to class with me and it was a good thing. My mouth was so dry you could almost have heard my mouth crackle as I opened it. The bottle was nearly full when I got to my seat and I think it was almost empty before the next person was done.
I just hope that Mr. Y had a good dose of mercy in his pocket that night. One thing I know for sure, God sure knew what He was doing when He didn’t make a man out of me!
It's amazing how many other things I can find to write about when I've got a ton of homework writing that I'm supposed to do.
posted by Sharon @ 9:40 PM
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