horrors of speeches

I hate giving speeches. I hate talking in front of groups of people. I hate the blood pressure rise, the pounding in my chest, my stomach hits the floor and I feel like my mind goes for a stroll and leave my body on it's own to fend for itself. In short, I hate giving speeches.

BUT professors - and more specifically my T.A. - don't care about my aversion. All quarter long, my persuasive writing class has been building up to us giving 5-6 minute speeches. Mine was today. I should have practiced Sunday... or Monday... or last night. I just couldn't face it. So I ended up practicing it this morning at 8 am just before class. I'm not good with writing tons down so I thought it would be better "off the cuff." Well in my one and only practice run this morning, my speech ran 20 minutes long. That of course is WAY too long. I think I ended up jabbering on for about 6 minutes during the actual speech, but I had to skip so many talking points that I don't think I did a very good job. PLUS I'm not even sure which points I skipped since my brain went to lunch during the whole thing. Sure my lips were moving, my hands were gesturing but I have no idea what I actually said. The only thing I'm sure of is that my jokes (the only two I tried) didn't go over and shook my confidence even more.

At least the dam thing is done though. It's been hanging over my head all quarter. One more test in that class, and I can write off the whole experience of that class. Thank you god for letting me survive another speech!