Public Speaking 101

I walked in to Pecha Kucha just as the first presentation was about to start (Andrea Grover) and realized that I was going to have to hold the microphone in one hand, which meant that I wouldn’t be able to flip through my meticulously-copied note cards in the other hand. I went fourth out of maybe a dozen people, and when I walked up to the front with the screen behind me, I had to just stoop down, throw my notes on the floor and wing it.

There were a lot of people there, in the University of Houston architecture hall’s atrium — enough the people were hanging over the balconies on the upper floors, and when I realized this my legs started quaking so hard that I pretty much forgot everything I wanted to say and had to concentrate mainly on not collapsing in front of 200 people. When I spoke, my voice wavered. And then I began to ramble about my life in Korea in a way that I’m not entirely sure was related to my pictures. Oh well.

I don’t really know Andrea, but I know *of* her. She was sitting in the front row, and at one point I said something and I looked down at her and she had the biggest grin on her face and that kind of made everything better. So thank you, Andrea.

After seeing the others’ presentations I think now I was a little too ambitious in my topic choice and because I wanted to talk about something so broad and dear to me I ended up with a lack of focus. I haven’t done much public speaking, and there’s a first time for everything. I’m glad I did it, though. In fact, I’d like to do it again, this time with a more specific topic, and better slides.