TheBanyanTree: When I read

[Gloria]

Congrats to you for continuing with the reading!!!!!  You did it!  You made
it through!  People appreciated it and let you know it.

It gets much easier with practice.  The more you speak to crowds, small
groups, whatever, the easier it gets.  I know, I've been there.  Shoot, I'd
feel anxious just knowing that my turn to speak was coming up!  Having to
do it more and more often certainly helped, though I dreaded it...and I do
mean dreaded the moment I'd have to become the center of attention for a
spell.  The other thing that helped me was hearing Connie Chang(?), a news
gal, tell everyone on her first day how nervous she was to be there.  It
blew my mind that SHE would be nervous....she had lots of experience at
this stuff!  And then she added that she'd take it as a sign of how truly
excited she was to be there.  Once I decided that I'd think excitement,
rather than anxious, I did a whole lot better.  So next time you get the
anxious feeling...give thanks and say to yourself... Yep!  I'm ALIVE!  I'm
feeling!  Excited about being here and doing this!

Hey...we can try anything once, eh?

Way to go, Dave!
Da Dreamer






On Thu, Feb 16, 2012 at 11:19 PM, Theta <tybrent at gmail.com> wrote:

> Sometimes poetry that makes no sense to you, the author, speaks the
> loudest to the people who hear it.  Good for you, getting up there and
> sharing your words!  We'd like to hear them, too, but since we don't yet
> have a voice function, will you share the written word with us?
>
> Theta
>
>
> On 2/16/2012 3:53 AM, dseaman77 at gmail.com wrote:
>
>> I think I will do okay. But about halfway through the anxiety sets in and
>> becomes apparent in my voice. I can't see the crowd. Just the lights
>> shining in my eyes, and the microphone. I step up. There is no way to
>> monitor the sound so I just speak in good faith. Hope that I am being heard
>> cause I sure as hell cannot project worth a damn.
>>
>> My throat tightens up, like I said, about halfway through. It was the
>> same thing in communications class. Whenever it was my turn to speak I
>> would start strong but at around the halfway point my throat would dry up
>> and my voice got all wonky.
>>
>> Luckily I have the copy of the poem in front of me. A smarter person
>> would be able to recite from memory. A smarter person would have a bottle
>> of water with them on stage. But I read. Hide my eyes in the words. Wonder
>> why the hell I even wrote them. What does this mean anyways? I think I just
>> string words together that sound good but then when I read them it just
>> sounds like gobbledygook spewing from my mouth.
>>
>> But then it is over and the people clap. The applause is loud even though
>> perhaps forced a little, out of kindness for the bell shaped old fart with
>> his grey whiskers and goofy hat. And poetry that makes no sense.
>>
>>
>