Just a warning: this is a loooong entry. the whooole thing is me ranting and rambling.

i did soooo badly on my speech. and im not being melodramatic or exaggerating. i literally froze up there for about fifteen seconds. my mind went BLANK. the problem with freezing is that you're not focusing on getting back your train of thought. You're focusing on the fact that you're up there and not saying a word. so the consequence is that you're silence just keeps on going. after like ten seconds i was seriously considering just stopping and running out of there. but im not the type of person to give up so i kept on going. in my speech i didn't say stuff that i rehearsed, and i said stuff that i never rhearsed before. i had my speech down so well. i heck of memorized it, but no matter how well you can memorize a speech when u get up there it's so different.

i've never frozen before...EVER. all bad. all bad. i thought that me and michelle were gonna go to a rotary meeting then go somewhere to say the speech....but we actually said the speech AT the meeting. and when it's a niles rotary club meeting EVERYONE in the rotary club is there. there were like eight tables with ten people at each one. holy mother....there were a lot of people.

i'm used to getting up in front of an audience cuz that's what i do in school plays. i've never frozen on stage or felt nervewrecked, but this is so different. when my mind went blank i thought "oh, so this is what it's like to have a stroke". when im acting im someone else, and im not being myself. i just get lost in the performance. and in debates you're interacting with other people. but when you give a speech that has to be about a certain topic, in this time limit, and you know people there are judging you.....it's so nervewrecking. before i get up in front of an audience i always tell myself "if u make an ass out of yourself...who cares. you'll never see these people again." so when i say that to myself i always go all out and do my best. but this was so different. when i was rehearsing my speech i knew when i would pause and all the hand motions to make...but when i got up there my hands were glued to my sides.

and rotary people are kinda daunting. like these people are freaking loaded and they have this high standing in society. you can't be in the club if you're not pretty well off. and after my speech i found out that dr.richard king was there. i was like "oh". that's all i could think of. i mean, dr. king the infamous speech maker saw me make the worst speech EVER. great. absolutely wondeeeful.

The rules for the audience are that no one can clap. you basically have to be completely still and silent during the speeches. so even though i know it's the rules, when no one's saying anything and just staring at you it's scary. and when i was walking off i felt all eyes on me and no one said anything. i heck of wish that when i froze, soemone would've gotten up and said "just freaking talk!!" and that would've defintely gotten me in gear.

i thought i was so ready for the speech. the only part i was worried about was that my speech wasn't good enough. i was counting on my public speaking ability to make the speech good. cuz i've always been able to get up in front of an audience and perform. but i felt so let down after the speech. it's that feeling you get when you thought you were really good at something, but then you just totally failed at it.

so i got third place and twenty five bucks. a lot of people will say "why're u complaing. you got twenty five bucks." but i guess they dont understand that i dont care about the money or what place i get.....i just wanted to give a good speech. i can see that the phrase "at least you tried your hardest" really does mean a lot. there were only three of us there so we would all get prize money, but if there were ten people there and i didn't get money but gave a really good speech, then i'd feel good. cuz it's not about being first or getting the money.

i'm trying to look at this positively. (trying but not really succeeding). i mean, it WAS my first time, and now i know how DIFFERENT speech making is from acting....especially when you're being judged. but i guess i got experience now and i'll learn from it. the girl who got first place TOTALLY deserved it though. this was her FOURTH year doing the contest and she was definitely good. another good thing: when i first mentioned the name dory and finding nemo this guy in the front started heck of laughing. a lot of people laughed whenever i mentioend finding nemo so that was good =D. but man....i still feel so horrible for how badly i screwed up =/

rotary meetings are interesting. they find so many excuses for you to donate money. like it's this one guy's birthday so the president addresses the room "how much do you think? fifty bucks?" and the bday guy goes "no. twenty." so the bday guy whips out his check book and writes a check for twenty dollars. they do this for everything. if its your anniversary you'll write a check. if you moved you'll write a check. and in this way they get all these donations and stuff. it's pretty funny that you GIVE money away on ur bday.

geez....rotary people are loaded. all over the place people are breaking out checkbooks and cash and everything. for their freaking lunch they got this whole buffet going with salad, fettucine, potatoes, roast turkey, fruits, and cake set out on small plates. im like holy crap, this is casual lunch!? oh well, it was yummy.

i keep on reflecting back on when i froze...that was a horrible moment. i think giving that speech was one of the scariest things i've done. i still think i screwed up horribly but since i've been ranting for like half an hour, by now i've realized that maybe it wasn't SO bad. everyone was congratulating me afterwards, and im pretty sure they were all genuine "congratulations". they were all saying that it take guts going up there....and it takes guts not to run out of the room. even whitney was heck of nervous and it was her fourth year also.

i really wish that i hadn't done so badly....but wallach and hougherton were both telling me that the speaker always sees things much worse than the audience. the audience is just sitting there waiting for the speaker to continue, whereas the speaker feels like she's having a damn STROKE! i guess it's all perspective. i think i've ranted enough. eh, i'll probably do more ranting in school tomorrow when ppl ask me how the speech contest went. i'm a talkative person....it's not enough for me to just say "bad".

egh...bad day today. chem test was easy but i know i missed four already. four's not so bad but you know that whenever you're certain of your wrong answers, you always get more answers wrong in addition to the ones you're sure of. math test was o.k. i could've gotten a C or i could've gotten A. i hate that. blah, retarded speech. hmm...i wonder how long it'll take me to get over this. any guesses? i'm thinking about one week.