I am in a public speaking club at school and I really like it a lot. Three people give prepared speeches every week, three people evaluate their speeches, and there are also extemporaneous speeches where people are put on the spot with random questions that they have to answer. I really enjoyed giving my prepared speech, but the extemporaneous speeches can be terrible. Tonight, the question I had to answer was something like, “So we’ve had bird flu and swine flu … what will be the next big flu outbreak?” and I just started rambling on about … I don’t even know what. Words were coming out of my mouth, but I’m not entirely sure what they were and I KNOW they didn’t make any sense.
However, that said, it’s good practice because sometimes in life, you really DO have to talk out of your ass and it’s nice to be in an environment where you can get comfortable doing that. Furthermore, it’s also sort of helpful because it helps people get over their embarassment over saying stupid things. I mean, I know whatever I said tonight was stupid, but it also does not matter that much. In my younger days, I would probably lose sleep over saying something stupid in front of a crowd of people, but now I know that it’s really not worth stressing over so much. There are more important things to lose sleep over.
I also really like it because it helps you learn more about people. People share stories that are funny and interesting and I love hearing about other peoples’ lives and the paths that brought them to the places they are today.
Food Find of the Day: Edy’s Slow-Churned Pumpkin Ice Cream. Amazing.
