Two years ago I was terrified of public speaking. I honestly would have rather been in a car accident, flown to the nearest hospital, and spend a few days in the ICU then give a speech. And I hate hospitals. My doctor even gave me a prescription for Valium in case I needed it (although I never did fill it).

Today I gave a speech about my research paper. And it went just fine.

Two years ago I would toss and turn and get no sleep the night before the speech. I would spend the whole day in a cold sweat worried about falling face first, or spitting when I talk, or forgetting what I was going to talk about. I would literally shake in my chair waiting for my turn to get up and speak.

This time I didn’t have any of that.

I got a good night’s sleep last night. I didn’t think about my speech at all during the day today. And I really wasn’t that nervous as I sat in my chair at school waiting for my turn.

I’m cured.

Ok, maybe not cured. I was still a little nervous. But it was nothing like what I used to feel when I gave a speech. I’m a girl who had to take speech three times before finally passed it. I kept dropping the class because I was too scared to stand in front of the class and give a speech.

How did I get here? I don’t really know. At some point last term I watched these 20-year-old kids give their speeches and I realized, “They all suck.” Well maybe not suck, but they were all nervous. They all said, “um” every other word. They all lost their place in their notes. They all forgot their words at one point or another. They all struggled with their Powerpoint. None of us were that great so why was I stressing about it.

And that was it. I wasn’t really worried about my speeches. I just made sure I was prepared – going over my material a few times before hand – and then did my best. It feels so good to finally be brave.

We had our first presentation tonight in my Marketing Research class. I tried to strike a deal with my teammates. I would do just about anything to get out of giving a speech. But I was worried I wasn’t very persuasive with my teammates and would end up stumbling through a few slides in front of my class.

Two weeks ago we lead a focus group of our peers in a discussion of organic foods and the feasibility of opening an organic grocery store in our area. We then were supposed to compile our data in to a summary and a final report for a presentation to the class. We weren’t required to have every teammate present. Our teacher left is up to us to determine how we’d work the presentation. In fact tonight there was one team who had just one of their team members present the entire presentation. And another team had just two people from their group.

Each team has about seven members. And the presentation was to be between five and ten minutes long. That means, if we had every team member present, we each had to talk for about 30 seconds to a minute. Still entirely too long in my book. Personally I think the presentations with just a couple presenters went much smoother than the ones were seven people hovered at the front of the class and spoke for 30 seconds each. But maybe that’s just because I was determined not to be one of the seven people.

So my deal with my team was that I would write the entire summary and the whole report if it would get me out of presenting. I thought that was a pretty good deal. I mean in the end writing the summary and report would take a heck of a lot longer than just reading off a slide while standing in front of the classroom.

But today when I received the slides from the teammate who put the presentation together I discovered I was responsible for the introduction and stating our research objectives. My plan had failed. I was going to have to present. In front of the classroom. With a bunch of little twenty year old beady eyes staring at me. Hopefully I wouldn’t drool.

So I was pretty much dreading going to class tonight. We met a half hour early to run through the slides [since we didn't even get the slides until early this morning]. As soon as I got there I got a wonderful surprise. One of my teammate, Sarah, asked me if I wanted her to take my slides. She said, “the deal was, you write the papers and you don’t have to present.” And then I made out with her.

Ok, so I didn’t really make out with her. But she is my new best friend.

Instead of presenting I just worked the computer and advanced the slides while Sarah presented both my part and her part and the rest of the team presented theirs. And then we all sang Kum Bi Ya together and everything was good. Yeah, that’s last part didn’t really happen either. But our presentation did go really well and I am expecting an A.

Today was America Reads Day at the kids’ school. Otherwise known as D.E.A.R. for Drop Everything And Read. I have been participating in America Reads Day every single year since Keaton was in kindergarten…so nine years. The first six years I read with Keaton and the last two years I read with Skyler & Spencer.

Every year their teacher sends home a note asking if parents would like to volunteer. They give you a choice to read a book to the entire class or just to come read quietly with your child. I always choose to read quietly with my child because we all know how I feel about public speaking*. Even when my public is a group of small children.

In the past I have been known to read to a small group of children. Skyler & Spencer usually get a few of their friends to join us in the corner of the room and I read two or three books to all of them. But never once have I had to sit in the “teacher’s chair” in the front of the classroom with 25 pairs of weepy kid eyes staring at me.

At least not until today.

I decided to go to Caleb’s classroom today since this is his first year. I filled out the same same form I fill out every year. I did NOT check the “read to the whole class” box. I definitely chose the “read quietly to my child” box. But apparently that wasn’t an option in Caleb’s class.

Five parents, including me, showed up to read in Caleb’s class. I figured we’d break off in to small groups and read like in the past. But I was wrong. Caleb’s teacher told us all to pick out a book to read to the class. I started to panic. “What do you mean read to the class?”

But then I looked at Caleb and he was giddy with excitement. I’ve never seen the kid so happy. He was literally jumping up and down because his mom was going to read to the class. How could I let him down? Sometimes I just need to pull up my big girl panties and get over myself.

So I did.

I read A Pocket For Corduroy. And I did it without falling out of my chair. And I stayed conscious the whole time. Baby steps people.

When I was done the class gave me a cheese grater round of applause because I’m the big cheese and I’m great. [Ok, the whole cheese grater applause thing is hard to explain in a blog post. You had to be there. It was really cute.]

*I’ve talked about my fear of public speaking so often it now has it’s own category.

Over at Mother Talk they’ve declared today Fearless Friday in honor of Arianna Huffington’s new book On Becoming Fearless: …in Love, Work, and Life. The ladies are all talking about fearless moments in their life and it’s inspired me to talk about my fearless moment.

It’s actually quite timely that they would be having a Fearless Friday because on my way home from school on Wednesday I was thinking about how I didn’t used to be such a scaredy cat. When I was 18 I went off to college all by myself. Ok, so it’s not like I went far away. It was only 45 minutes from home, but I lived in the dorms with two other girls I had never met before.

When I was in high school I made plans to either live with Necole or Rachel. But by the time September rolled around neither Necole or Rachel were attending the same university so I had to go on my own.

Now I wasn’t at school very long. Only three weeks actually. But I didn’t drop out because I was scared. [There were other reasons I won't go in to now.] But in those three weeks I was on my own and making new friends. This was quite an accomplishment for me since I had spent most of my life as such a shy child. Finally, I was fearless.

But then as the years went on my anxieties increased. Now I don’t like to go to places I don’t know well. I obsess about all the things that can happen. When the parkade where I park at school is full, I have a mini anxiety attack because, oh my gosh, how will I ever find another place to park? And, as you know, I’m terrified to speak in front of groups.

Most people don’t fully understand my fear of public speaking [or parking or going to places unknown or having my channel on an odd number or....well you get the point]. My mom always tells me, “Everybody gets nervous. Just practice more. The more you practice the easier it gets.” No. No it doesn’t. In fact sometimes it’s worse. It just really depends on the day for me.

So Wednesday night I had a presentation at school. I joke about it, but it really is terrifying for me. I hardly slept the night before. I could feel the anxiety building all day long. It was raining that day so all the way to school I was thinking, “maybe one these cars on the interstate will spin out of control and hit me. Surely being in a car accident is a good excuse for missing the presentation.”

Once I got to school and got with my team I felt a little better. I have a great team this semester. The best team I’ve had in any of my classes since I’ve been back to school [this time]. But it still wasn’t enough to completely calm my nerves.

As I sat and waited for our first two team members to finish their part I eyeballed the door trying to determine how long it would take me to run to it and escape. Unfortunately I was on the complete opposite side of the room and I would have to hurdle over tables, peoples and possibly the podium to get to it. Surely somebody would tackle me and force me to present my part before I made it to the door.

Then I thought about the walk to the podium. Some genius decided to put the chairs on the other side of the room from the podium. This meant we had to walk the width of the room, directly in front of the projection screen to get to the podium. I had on heels. I hardly ever wear heels so it’s always hit and miss whether or not I’ll make it the whole day still standing or if I’ll end up flat on my butt. I was praying that I wouldn’t fall right in front of the class and the “experts” in the panel. I tried to come up with a snappy comeback in case I did fall. I decided to go with “this is why we aren’t worried that public transportation or walking will be much of a competitor to the Chevy Volt.”

Then it was my turn. I was so panic-stricken I could barely pull myself up out of the chair. But I took a deep breath, stood up and walked all the way over to the podium without falling. I stood at the podium and went through my slides. I had my speech memorized, but with my nerves I stumbled over my words a little. But I survived. I got the whole speech out and I even made eye contact with the crowd.

And then I was done. I walked back over to my chair without tripping over myself and sat down. My teammates whispered, “you did great” because like I told you this is the best group of kids I’ve ever worked with at the university. And like I said in my last post, I think our team was the best team [and I'm not just saying that because I'm part of the team].

As I drove home, I looked over at the dorm where I used to live…for three weeks…more than fifteen years ago, I thought about how fearless I used to be. And I thought “what if I had stayed in school? Would I not be the big pussy I am now?” Who knows? What I do know is I really, really, really did not want to give that speech, but I did it. I looked my fear in the eye and said “screw you.” Ok, maybe I wasn’t quite so aggressive with my fear. But I did it.

Baby steps, people. I’m getting there. Maybe by the time I’m 75 I’ll be able to give a speech without looking for the nearest exit. Of course by then there’d be no way I’d ever be able to hurdle tables and run for the door. Unless I get a rocket powered walker.