In preparing for the speech, I realized how reliant I was on writing out the entire speech--I'm used to doing that, and it's quite difficult to change the habit. It's hard for me to practice a speech without completely writing it out, and I am always worried about whether the phrasings are understandable, since no phrasing is planned. It was frustrating not having the handy-dandy help of a script.
Another thing I learned is that 5-7 minutes is actually a very short time for a speech. I had to cut down my speech extensively and remove some of the more scientific concepts because they took too long to explain. I feel that my speech ended up becoming very basic, and even then, I was almost maxing out on timing.
For the speech, I did better than I expected. Usually whenever I speak for longer than a couple sentences, my voice starts to quiver and I try to fit as many words into one breath as possible and end up running out of air. This causes awkward stops. However, this time, I didn't do it.
Additionally, I realized I tend to say a lot of "umm," "so," and "like." During the speech, I also realized that sometimes I kept on wanting to say "and," even though I didn't have anything else to say, causing me to have to end the sentence awkwardly with a "and...yumm, yeah." Another problem I noticed was that I moved my feet around too much. When I get nervous (and I don't know why), I unconsciously start trying to balance on the heals of my shoes. Overall, I need to be more aware of my movements and gestures.
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