'The Perfect Date: An Introduction to Amandaland'

Holy crap I just realized tomorrow is Wednesday and I hadn't blogged about last week's meeting yet.  This, obviously, means Fable III will have to wait a little bit longer before we can reconvene.

Somehow I am always the first to arrive to these meetings.  I'm not sure if that's cause I'm an anal-retentive Virgo or because my reminders flash earlier than everyone else's or because I'm still new and excited... but what I am sure of is that it is a very bad idea to sit all alone in the room for a good five minutes before anyone shows up on a day that I am giving a speech.

I was infinitely more nervous than I thought I'd be.  I spent those five minutes not going over my speech in my head like I should have, but instead on focusing on the five hundred different ways this entire 'speech' thing could go horribly wrong.  I was convinced I had toilet paper stuck to my shoe, or my pants were unzipped or that I would trip and fall on the way to the podium...  My hands, literally, shook from the moment I sat down, through the small talk as people began to filter in, through the explanations and the Pledge, through the first speech and only ceased when my name was called and I could latch them on to the podium to keep them from shaking any more - which, by the way, my Evaluator totally called me out for lol.

To recap for a whole second:  Everyone's first speech is the Icebreaker. You spend four to six minutes talking about the subject you are supposed to know best - yourself.  I spent more than one night tossing and turning trying to decide exactly what about myself to talk about.  Even blogged about it.

Eventually though, I settled on a topic.  So Halloween weekend, while the boys were scouring New Orleans for a liquor store, I laid on the bed in the hotel room and drafted out a rough outline.  Only...by "outline" I mean entire speech - because my brain refuses to work in outline form.  It's a jerk that way.  And then Wednesday morning I grabbed a conference room at work to lock myself in for a few minutes so I could time it.  I was pretty pleased when I looked at the timer and saw 5:30 as the average time, so I called it a day and returned to work until the meeting.

However...  the speech was engineered to elicit laughter from the audience.  What I learned as I gave my speech was that I should allow more time when being funny - because pauses for laughter eat into your time limit.  I was over by a few seconds... I don't remember the exact time - but it wasn't over 6:30, so I was pleased.

I'm debating posting the draft of the speech itself.  Would that be too much?   Would anyone care to read it?

The short version is that I met my husband on Friday the 13th - which was the Perfect Date for us - because I have an unhealthy obsession with Horror movies and the two of us, together, have the worst luck on the planet.

The comments I got back were mostly about how awesome I was.  (No, really.  But that's kind of the point of evaluating an Icebreaker, is to make them feel more confident about the next speech.)  The critiques I did receive were the death-grip-on-the-podium-thing at the beginning of my speech (it relaxed as I warmed up and got going), and that there was a lot of content in the speech itself - enough for almost two whole speeches.  It was suggested that I split them, retool them and re-give them for later sections of the Competent Communicator book.

I didn't win the best speech vote.  I will not lie and say I am okay with that lol.  But - I will get another shot soon.

Having done both now - I can say beyond a shadow of a doubt that the speech portion of ToastMasters is infinitely more scary and hard for me than Table Topics is.  I had expected the opposite and am a bit...nonplussed?... at this realization.  It makes me want to start on the next speech soon though.  I WILL CONQUER MY WEAKNESSES - I AM SQUISH HEAR ME ROAR!

For tomorrow - I signed up to be the Table Topics Master.  This means *I* get to pick the ridiculous and random questions and make whoever I choose answer them.  {insert maniacal, evil laughter here}