Go along with it!

Presenting my first serious speech was nerve-wracking.  I believe I was more nervous dying my informative speech than my introductory speech. All I could think about was how much my performance would affect my grade. Seeing that this speech would be weighed more heavily than the previous speech, I chose topic that I was passionate about. Since a young age, I have been interested in whales and dolphins. I figured that if I chose a topic that my heart was in, it would be easy for me to show my passion for it and my audience would be more engaged. I decided to inform my peers about how captivity affects bottle nose dolphins.

Along the way, I learned lessons that will be helpful for my future speeches. For my next speech, I will make sure to rehearse my speech aloud several times the night before. The previous night, I recited my speech to my roommate several times, but decided to stop because I felt like I was getting on her nerves. I then thought that I could rehearse it in my head and that would be enough. Unfortunately, it was not. Upon giving my speech, I skipped an entire paragraph. To make matters worse, I also said allowed, “Oops! I messed up!” I wanted to die when that happened. However, now I know to look at my note card more often and know not to be afraid of practicing multiple times the night  before. In spite of what happened, I am glad how my speech turned out. I went along with it as though I had not made a mistake, and it seemed to have worked. Several of my peers came up to me to congratulate me. Guys, I don’t know if you were just saying that to make me feel better— but thank you! From this, I learned that when you make a mistake, pretend as though nothing has happened and your audience will never know!