A Year of Memories_Speech and Debate

Ever since I was little, I enjoyed my share of time on stage. I had been in countless violin, piano and ballet recitals since I was 5. I enjoyed being in musicals and plays. And I was even a varsity cheerleader. But when I decided to join the speech and debate seminar, that, made my stomach churn over and over. Why I decided to join this seminar, I don’t remember. But I did. And every Tuesday evening was a huge challenge for me.

I knew how to project my voice from cheerleading and I had gotten over stage freight from my many recitals. But public speaking was something else. In speech and debate, we did exercises that helped us speak boldly and confidently, we did mock debates that helped us think quickly on our feet, we also watched speeches to learn tips on public speaking. A whole trimester of these exercises should have helped me get over my fear of public speaking, but I still have it. But I don’t think I didn’t learn anything from this seminar; rather I have a new bit of confidence knowing that I have all the tools of good public speaking somewhere under my belt. Also, I now know that I have a weakness in public speaking and I will constantly try to get better at it.

Another confidence this experience gave me was that I learned how to distinguish what I enjoyed and what was good for me. Because my mom wasn’t there to do it, I had to force myself to go every Tuesday. But after I came back I felt accomplished for even just going. I always had fun at the seminars, so I’m not sure why the next Tuesday I didn’t want to go. After the seminar was over, I feel like overcoming such a challenge helped me mature because I learned that sometimes I need to battle with myself to make myself a better person. I also learned that battles with myself are much harder than with, say my mom, because I could always talk myself out of something. After all, I was only on person and one half of my body could drag the other half to the seminar. Speech and debate was a difficult experience, but I learned so many things, some things unrelated to speech and debate itself.