public speaking

I’m in a Public Speaking class for the Summer II session at a community college and today I gave my second speech.

My first speech last week had me nervous. I was on the Speech and Debate team in high school, but I wasn’t one of the “good ones” even though our coach is a completely unironic legend. She tried with me, but I was busy trying to merely survive and wasn’t able to commit to the effort as much as is required to be good. Going into this, I found myself reverting back into old ways like a perfectly fitting vintage coat and even though my hands were shaking uncontrollably when I finished that first speech, our teacher told the whole class, “if you want to know what a 100 looks like, that’s it.”

I prepared for this second speech, a “how-to”, almost as much as I did for the first, only foregoing the practice in the speech lab for extra credit as I found it clunky navigating a powerpoint and demonstrating, and remembering what to say. I was not confident going into this one regardless, and I secretly felt that no amount of practice or preparation was going to help me feel any differently in the time we had to prepare this.

Last night as I left the ballet studio after teaching a private lesson, I noticed how much more pronounced my OCD tendencies have gotten, and that evening as well as this morning it was all the more glaring, along with my social anxiety. I tried to keep my self calm, give myself pep talks, listen to those offering me words of encouragement going into it (though they didn’t know the internal scope of what I was up against), and go into this with enough fake confidence that no one would be the wiser as to what was actually going on internally. Maybe in doing so I could squeak out a passable speech (for my standards and the standard i’m assuming my first speech set for me) The day as a whole was a bit disjointed for a bunch of us and as i’m speaking I can feel myself falling apart, missing my points, and at the end completely forgot my power point was a thing. I sat down and pretended I was fine and it was whatever, helped my classmates when it was needed, made small talk, and walked back to my car after class was done with one more speech under my belt.

As I turned the key in the ignition and my mind started going over everything that just happened, all the feigned confidence began to wane. I drove back to work and opened up my laptop so I could get my self critique portion of the grade over. there’s a part of this that has questions you answer before watching your speech and a portion you answer after. and I was honest. scale of 1-10? No higher than a 6, and even that is pushing it. How did you feel after? Not great, this wasn’t my best work. after viewing it, what did you feel you can improve on? Everything. My speed was too fast, my power point was lacking, I didn’t feel I demonstrated it quite well enough, etc. What are you most proud of? That I actually did it and didn’t avoid it like everything inside me was telling me to do. I knew inside—and not just out of pessimism—that this wasn’t going to go well and that fact made me want to avoid. I pretended like it wouldn’t be right, but I knew it would be, and it was. I started looking ahead to the next speech in hopes I can get a head start so I don’t feel like this again, but any topic I thought of made me feel dejected and like I was setting myself up for a repeat of this experience. I hate how this feels and I don’t want to keep going in, but I need the grade, and i’m sure it’s not as bad as my brain is telling me it is. I felt panic coming on as I had to find words to talk about how I felt with this damn speech, and opted to do the extra credit on “10 rookie mistakes” where I was to identify at least 10 of them I felt I could improve upon and write a 1-2 page paper on it. The creativity options that held for someone who was basically turning in a blog post for extra credit helped me keep the panic at bay, but I still couldn’t shake that feeling of wanting to cry and, worse, I couldn’t actually cry. It’s as though my body wouldn’t allow me; it wouldn’t do me that solid.

Each of our classmates is supposed to also do a Peer Critique. it’s anonymous and they collect them all by person and we take them home to see what our audience thinks we did well and can improve on. I almost didn’t look at mine. I was so dejected that I couldn’t even remember where I put them, though I did remember picking them up like we’re supposed to. When I got to my second job, I pulled out my laptop to print out a few things for class and found them in my folder that sits in my backpack next to my laptop. I figured, if i’m ever going to read these, now is the time so I can get everything over with now and can move on and never think about this again. Most of the notes said nice things, only one actually did the part of providing two things upon which I can improve. (better power point and not moving my head side to side so much. both I found to be helpful, and I was moving my head side to side to try and look at everyone more since I was told last time I didn’t do it enough.) The rest were helpful with their things they thought I did great, saying they enjoyed the topic—which I was concerned about—and my speaking speed was good (are we sure?), and that my directions were easy to follow. I was grateful.

One of the last ones I read became my undoing. It read,

“You’re a great speaker. I admire you!”

That did it. Those seven words pulled the thread that unraveled the entire sweater of my emotions. I sat there, papers in hand, crying without even trying, that one line speaking straight to my heart. I stopped crying a few moments later, looked at it again, and started up all over again.

These peer critiques are anonymous, so I don’t even know who feels this way about me. I have a couple guesses of who it might be, but I don’t know everyone’s handwriting to be sure. Regardless, whoever it was held the pen that ended up being the key that opened the lock leading to the release and relief I had been desperate for. They likely have absolutely no idea how much their words would mean, and they didn’t have to write them, but they did anyway. A simple gesture of encouragement that was the hand reaching out to pull me out of the spiraling pit in which I had found myself.

And as I sat there, I realized I knew what my next speech topic would be. Our next speech is an Informative, where we have to have a powerpoint (ugh), an introduction, three clear points, and a conclusion to tie it all together. We also have to have a clear outline, at least 3 but preferable 5 citations properly mentioned in our speech, a works cited page in proper format, and probably other things I can’t remember off the top of my head. i’ve been mulling over ideas; The history of quilting, this history of barn quilts specifically, Myalgic Encephalomyelitis, Ehlers Danlos Syndrome, my favorite members of my family tree, SPAM the canned food product, etc. Still, none of these felt right. None of these felt like something I would be confident picking and able to do what was asked of me well. I feared if I didn’t feel confident at the start, if I didn’t feel that sensation of peace i’ve come to shape my life around, that I would be doomed to repeat today’s situation and subsequent sensations.

Reading that anonymous peer critique I realized I wanted to do my next speech on how our words have power. They can influence, they can hurt, or they can heal.

now I don’t know if i’m allowed to use this class as an example in this speech, but if I am you bet your buttons i’m going to somehow weave in this situation to prove how words can heal. If not, i’ll find other ways to do so. Maybe even sneak in a photographic example of healing words, perhaps even one of the critique itself.

I’m so glad I decided to read those forms, and beyond grateful that whoever that was wrote those words to me. I plan to hold on to this little piece of paper and keep it in a place to serve as a reminder when my world starts closing in on me again, as is bound to happen.

(photo of the peer speech critique form giving me the mentioned compliments that meant so much to me. an expert flower—my symbol—is drawn in the top right hand corner)

The community college I’m going to has two different summer sessions, each running 6 weeks. Summer 1 began May 27th and ended July 3rd, Summer 2 began July 7th and runs through August 14th. If you do two classes during a summer session, you’re considered a full time student. Summer 1 I did Psychology and ASL 1, and now in Summer 2 I’m doing Public Speaking and ASL 2.

I chose to do Psychology and Public Speaking in the summer because they’re two classes I felt would take a little bit more effort on my part and trying to do them during a show season at the Ballet, especially a Nutcracker season, felt like cruel and unusual punishment. I didn’t want to add to my stress that is already through the roof with working two jobs by adding in complex classes. (I’ve lucked out that I only have two ASL classes offered in the fall, when I’m busiest. Spring isn’t so lucky with something like 14 hours worth of ASL classes while working full time at two jobs. Yeehaw?)

My Psychology class that I took in Summer 1 ended up being my absolute favorite. Everything about it made me feel so good and I looked forward to attending class. Sure, it was quite a bit of work, but the material we were learning was so interesting and the “kids” in my class were engaging and hilarious that I found myself having so much fun, even when it was difficult. I found myself feeling what I’d consider to be a sense of grief once the class ended and I had to take some time to let myself process the fact that I’d never have that class with that teacher and those fellow students ever again and to shift into the “smile because it happened” phase of change.

Needless to say, I wasn’t looking forward to Public Speaking, sort of by default. It’s hard to be the second act after such a solid first act, anything would pale by comparison. I found out my last week of Summer 1 that the teacher in whose class I originally enrolled didn’t make the required number of students and I was switched to a different teacher. At first this just added to my anxiety, but then I realized it was someone my friend had taken in Spring and since she really liked her class I calmed down a little bit.

First day of class our teacher told us a little bit about herself and also explained her expectations from us for the class. This is when I learned that she did her student teaching under my high school speech teacher, who is an absolute legend. This was something I found both helpful as well as adding to the nerves. It was helpful in the sense that I felt I was already familiar with what she would be expecting in the most basic sense. I did speech and debate in high school and though it’s all quite a blur, I figured I would sort of slide right back into that frame of mind and may be able to squeak out an okay grade. The downside is that because of this connection to Ms. Brown, I now had extremely high standards for myself and feel she will expect a lot out of me as well. How do I explain to my new speech teacher that I’m actually not that great at this and that I never did this kind of speech in speech and debate? Will my speeches speak for themselves (terrible pun there, forgive me, I didn’t mean it) or – worse – will she hear me speak and have no clue that I ever sat under the Great Ms. Brown? And if she could tell, does that mean she’s going to hold me to an outrageously high standard befitting a “Brownie”?

Damned if I do, damned if I don’t I guess.

The second day of class we had a quiz for extra credit that I completely forgot about. I felt so scattered trying to get situated with everything that comes with the new class and new semester, as well as work and also teaching ballet private lessons (and then add in sorting through all the emotions with the recent floods in Central Texas) that I got to class and remembered nothing of what she told us. I quickly looked over the hand out and all the different things she told us to star in hopes it would be enough. There were ten questions and if you missed 2 or less then you would get the extra credit. Wouldn’t you know I was the only person who didn’t get the required amount of questions right? Clearly this did nothing for my confidence going into this. After class that day, I met with Dr. A to go over the last exam. I had had a dream in my anxiety a few days before that I got to her office and remember looking at the Scantron, but couldn’t remember what any of the actual questions or answers were and was super confused about the entire thing. Thankfully, it wasn’t like that and I actually forgot that it wouldn’t be the second exam that I was seeing. When she handed me the Scantron and test I expected to see way more incorrect answers but was pleasantly surprised to be reminded that this was the exam on which I had done the best. The questions I got wrong were ones I had either debated between the two answers or else talked myself out of the correct one, so I was pleased overall with the outcome. I told Dr. A how I missed her class and that she definitely has ruined any other class for me because now they’re all held to the standard of her class. She laughed and told me I would do well in my other classes and I decided to believe her, even though at this point I was certain that if I squeaked out a B in Speech I’d be callin’ it good.

We have 4 speeches we’ll have to give in class, the first of which was today. Our teacher gave us a handout with a guideline for how to format our speech and also provided different videos for extra credit that I found helpful. These videos gave me a pretty good sense of what she would be expecting, what was allowed, and which common trip-ups weren’t deal breakers. She also gave us a typed up example of what her speech would look like, as well as what her notecard would look like. The notecard isn’t supposed to have our entire speech but instead serve more like a bullet point list to help us if we got tripped up. Much like how I don’t read music in violin, I had a feeling that if I could get a pretty good sense of my speech memorized that I would feel more confident in it, because then if I completely messed up I could hope that muscle memory would kick in and keep me going. I wrote the speech when I finally got a quiet moment between work, violin, work, and private lessons, and practiced when I got home, though after practicing I realized I’d completely forgotten an entire section of points I was supposed to hit. (no wonder my timing improved!) That made me start second guessing myself right when I was starting to feel a little comfortable.

I was able to go in early and do the extra credit practicing in the speech lab, which is where you film yourself practicing three different times. I’m so glad I did because I completely spaced out on one of the sections in which I was most confident during the first run through. I ended up re-writing my notecard to make it more clear for where I tend to get caught up and kept thinking through the different parts I wasn’t confident in before class. Doing the practice before also helped me with my nerves because two of my other classmates were doing theirs before me and another came in after me. The camaraderie I felt with them helped me calm down my nerves. I’m so grateful.

Walking into class, I realized that I felt much the same way as when I was going into a psychology exam; if I’m getting it wrong, I’m going to get it wrong confidently. In speech terms I guess that translates to, if I bomb this, I’m going to bomb it the best way I know how. I decided that if no one volunteered to go first that I’d just get it out of the way; I felt okay enough to do that. Thankfully, other people volunteered quickly and I ended up fifth, which I thought was late enough to see examples of other people but early enough to not psych myself out in an anxiety spiral.

When I got up there I definitely felt myself flip into Speech-and-Debate-tournament mode and that muscle memory I was hoping for kicked in. I felt I actually managed to articulate myself the best in class than I ever did in practice, which surprised me. Going into it I was a bit concerned that my speech was disjointed and confusing, or that I would be speaking way too fast to try and keep in the time limit, but my teacher kept laughing at my jokes and quips so that made me feel a little better. (I think I still spoke a little fast, but slow by my standards. I speak fast, y’all.) When I finished, my hands were uncontrollably shaking. I had mentally prepared myself for how I would respond to my teachers small talk questions I would assume she would ask like she’d done with the people before me, picking out something from their speech to ask a little more detail about. Surely, she would connect the fact I mentioned growing up in my hometown and going to public high school and connect that I had Ms. Brown since I also mentioned my age.

But she didn’t.

I sat down and she says, “If y’all want to know what a 100 looks like, that was it.”
Then she said to me, “If you think you’re going to get away with not joining my speech team you’re mistaken.” I responded, “I was trained by Ms. Brown” to which she replied, “I can tell”.

I can not describe the relief I felt in that moment, both knowing I made a 100 and also that she could tell I studied under Ms. Brown. The fear of the standard I have now set for myself dulled a little bit. I found myself more surprised by it all.

I started public school Sophomore year. I wasn’t trained in how to do all this stuff for years like my peers and I definitely was lacking in the confidence department. I was too afraid to actually practice with Ms. Brown to be worth much of anything, though I squeaked out a few medals and trophies here and there; nothing enough to qualify for Nationals, but once I got 2nd in a Senior event (I can’t remember if it was Prose or DI) that no one was expecting. It was quite different from the stand out kids that consistently did well at tournaments. I was mediocre at best. To have that praise from my speech teacher, knowing she spent her student teaching days with Ms. Brown, is more than I could have ever expected.

As I drove back to work, I was reflecting on all of this and found myself remembering what I learned from Psychology—that maybe I’m actually smart and have been this whole time. Is it possible this could be true for more than just the classes I really like? What the hell is in the water now that I didn’t have before? Where did this come from? I could probably say age and experience helps, as well as all the work I’ve done over the last few years to unlearn old patterns of thinking and relearn new ones that better serve me, as well as boundaries and lots of therapy—but is it that “simple”? Nothing about all of that has been simple, but has this potential been in me this entire time?

Like.

Holy crap.

Tag: public speaking

words.

What college is doing to my confidence.