My Little English Corner
A new accent is an adventure. Be bold! Exaggerate wildly!
好久沒寫這麽長的東東了，當消遣看著玩吧。3151美眉想去toastmaster的話可以參考一下。
注：native speaker還沒給讀過，所以歡迎建設性磚頭，請勿打分。
As some of you may know, I have been planning to join Toastmaster to practice public speaking, and to get out the house as well. Last Thursday I went to visit one club and was planning to visit another one this Friday. But today, I went to the same club and had a great experience.
Early today, during our monthly meeting, I was talking on the phone with my mentor, Richard, who has been going to Toastmaster for 5 years and has recently become a governor of his county’s toastmaster clubs. Richard shared with me his experience of being a toastmaster member, and how he didn’t feel the butterflies any more when he was caught up to give a speech right on the spot. He said: “People always say that the butterflies never go away. You manage them. You get to a stage where you can let your butterflies fly in formation. For me, I don’t get butterflies anymore.” I said, (trying to be smart, :) ), “so your butterflies have flown away in formation.” We laughed.
My plan was to visit two clubs, decide on one of them and go there regularly as a member. I told him about my plan and asked him if it’s ok to visit the same club again, he said yes. So off I went. I was a little late as I went there on a last minute decision. They had already started. I went in at the “Word of the Day”, which is a long word: interdigitation, meaning holding hands. As a toastmaster practice, everyone is encouraged to use the “Word of the Day” during the meeting.
As usual, there are two prepared speeches. The first speaker talked about internet hacking and the Anthony Weiner’s scandal. I was very happy about the topic as I have been following the imbroglio (：）). It was an interesting talk, but a little bit too long. He actually went over the 7-minute-time limit by talking for more than 10 minutes, which disqualified him from the voting for the best speaker. The best speaker automatically became the second speaker, whose speech was given as a PowerPoint presentation. It was a great speech titled “Unfreeze yourself”. (note: Each prepared toastmaster speech has an aspect of public speaking that you want to work on.) For this second speech, it was to use visual aids to enhance the speech. The speaker did a great job showing an experiment: he put a piece of hard paper on top of a glass, and a couple of coins on the paper. When he pushed the paper away, the coins dropped into the glass. He used this experiment to demonstrate the concept of “Inertia”: the coins did not slide with the paper, but instead stayed in the same place and dropped into the glass when the paper was moved away. Everyone of us, like the coins, are resistant to changes. I thought it was a very powerful visual image.
After that, it was the table topics session, in which you have to give a one-to-two-minute speech on the spot when called by the Mr./Madame table topics. Normally, Mr./Madame table topics ask the visitors whether they want to participate. Last time when I was asked, I chickened out as I was nervous and the theme wasn’t a familiar one. This time the theme was “moving”. I agreed to speak, while butterflies fluttering rapidly in my stomach. I talked about the longest moving I experienced, coming to the US from China 12 years ago. I got a little emotional when I said: “ I called my mom at the layover in Shanghai and said to my mom: this is going to be the last time I talk to you while I am in China.”(now I think, it is actually not true, since I have gone back. hehe) Then I talked about my best moving when we moved from an apartment to our house and became a house owner. I used the word “holding hands” (Interdigitation) when I said the first night in our house, my husband and I were holding hands and enjoying the house with many moving boxes.
I felt pretty good about the speech. It was within the time limit: 1 minute 45 second. I used the word of the day. In toastmaster meetings, there are always an Ah-counter (whose responsibility is to count how many times you say fillers like ah… ok.. You know… ), and a grammarian. The Ah-counter reported that I had 6 ah’s and the grammarian said, despite my nervousness, I did not make any grammatical mistake. Woohoo, that’s great as you guys know how much I hate grammatical mistakes.
The best part of the meeting: I was voted the “Best Table Topics” from the five speakers! They give me two little cute banners, one for “Guest”, one for “Best Table Topics”. This is quite a big step for me: to stand up and give a speech, and get a “Best Table Topics” banner.
I could feel my adrenaline running high as I was driving home, thinking: actually, today turns out to be a pretty good day!
