Apparently this blog has turned in to a photo blog. I think I’ve posted more photos in the last week then I have in my 3 1/2 blogging career. Ok, maybe not, but there have been a lot of photos.

And today is no exception.

Today was the day of my big group presentation for my Consumer Behavior class. As you probably remember, I suck at public speaking. I consider a speech successful if I don’t pass out and nobody has to call 9-1-1.

Here is a photo of me before I left for my speech.

Nervous is a complete understatement. I was terrified. Back when my doctor diagnosed me with OCD he prescribed some medication I’m supposed to take daily [citalopram] and he gave me a prescription for a fast acting drug [like Valium], but I never filled that one. Today I was really wishing I had. I woke up with a headache and spent my whole day shaking just thinking about speaking in front of people.

As I drove to school I gave myself a little pep talk. “It’s only two minutes,” I said. “You can do it,” I hollered in my best Rob Schneider impersonation. But I was still nervous.

My team got to class an hour early and ran through our presentation twice. We were in our classroom with our slides on the screen. So it was good preparation. All we needed was the class. I was comforted to know that my other four teammates were pretty nervous too.

We went first and I think we did a pretty good job. I was the first speaker and I got through my part without locking my knees and falling to the floor in an embarrassing speech accident. And once I was done I got to sit down to navigate the slides. That was helpful because I’m sure if I would have been standing for the remainder of the presentation I surely would have toppled over and slammed my head on the podium. [Yes, these are the things that run through my head when I'm standing before a class of forty college students.]

After our presentations the class told us what we did well and where we could improve. They said they could hear me, but I was really soft. Other than that they seemed to like our speech [which was on the women's shoe market, specifically high fashion shoes].

So in the end it went well. And I survived.

This entry was posted on Monday, April 16th, 2007 at 10:35 pm and is filed under Public speaking w/o passing out. Comments are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.