Progress

I just got back from the Speaking Center. Dr. Dolby required all of us to visit at some point during the semester, and it seemed most logical to go for our first actual speaking assignment. I feel sorry for anyone else who wanted to make an appointment after me. They were basically booked when I got there. The session wasn't terribly mortifying, not that I expected it to be. In fact, I think my previous teaching experience has helped my public speaking skills. The girl who helped me said that I had decent eye contact, and she didn't mention anything about my volume even when I asked her to pay special attention to that. Everyone else's normal makes me feel like I'm screaming at people. I got a "louder" hand signal from Sara at GALL the other night. So, I "yelled" at the girl today and everything was good.
Public speaking doesn't send me into a panic, but I did have a few nervous things that I did during the presentation today. I started plucking at the side of the podium, which I noticed but didn't care to stop. It gave me something to do with my hands. I tend to gesticulate wildly during public speaking events, but not quite as much during normal conversation. When I wasn't plucking at the podium and relishing the loud, woody "plick," I was waving my hands around under the podium. I kind of wish I'd asked her to videotape me now. The only time I've ever seen myself speak was early in my teaching class, during the speech that I had to cut short because I had an averse reaction to the topic. All I had to do was talk about myself, so I printed out a picture of me kissing Mac and decided to talk about the horses. When I was standing in front of the class, I pulled out the picture and realized that I wasn't yet comfortable talking about my dead horse. The whole class got to watch me pause, close my eyes, mumble a little, and abruptly end my speech then and there--twice. So now, whenever I have to do a public speaking project, I just think about that and don't worry because that's about as awful as it gets. I completely blew it twice in that class. That was the first time, and then I lost my train of thought in the middle of a lesson on verbs. The rest of the class helped me out by being especially cooperative and volunteering to play the verb game for a majority of the lesson :) One of the first public speaking tips that Mrs. Weddle gave us in that class: people would rather see you succeed. I tell myself that before every single speaking assignment I've done since.
Ah, but I do wish I'd asked her to videotape me. I can't think of anything that can make a person feel as awkward, uncomfortable, and self-conscious, but nothing really compares when it comes to correcting those little things. Plus, I think it would've been funny to watch my hands.
I still need to work on my programming project, but I can't do it now. My problem is that I have to leave for Latin in less than half an hour. If I go in and start working on stuff, I'll consider skipping Latin because I can't force myself to quit. The same thing happens when I try to do some work before my computer science class. The same thing happens when I'm translating.