Speech Contest Comes To An End

The Toastmasters International Speech Contest came to an end for me last night. I placed 3rd in our District 37, Division B contest. Oddly for someone as competitive as myself, I'm extremely pleased with my placement.  Everyone who spoke gave excellent speeches.  So much so that as I was sitting in the audience listening to them and awaiting my turn I was thinking, "Uh-oh, uh-oh," having one of those moments where you wonder if it's possible for you to slip out of the building without anyone noticing.

I was pleased with my performance though. I held my own against some very advanced speakers. And from watching them, I know now what I need to do to go further the next time around. Use props and visual aids. Get the audience involved. State more clearly a direct tie-in to how the content of my speech affects the audience personally in their lives.  

 The winning speaker, Simon Whitaker, was phenomenal. He did some fancy boxing footwork and demonstrated amazing jump-roping ability in his speech and never missed a beat. I was winded just watching him and his heart had to be pounding but you'd never know it. It was an inspiring speech and he had the whole audience participate in it. I think he'll do well at the next level.

And, it's nice to be in the clear. No more practice for the next level. Now I have an inkling how the bronze medal winners at the Olympics feel. Gold is great and silver leaves you wondering what you could have changed and how close you maybe came to winning. But for those of us in third, we're just happy to be recognized for our efforts. =)

My applause and admiration for all the speech speakers AND the amazing table topic speakers. They had to speak extemporaneously on a question that would have stopped me dead in my tracks and I'm a pretty good table topics speaker. It was HARD and they all knocked it out of the park.  It was inspiring to watch them speak.

Lunch Tomorrow with Elizabeth Berg

I am so excited about my day tomorrow I can hardly sit still. Elizabeth Berg is one of my all-time favorite authors and my friend Pam invited me to a luncheon with her tomorrow afternoon at the High Point Literary League where Ms. Berg will be speaking.

Ms. Berg's writing is one of the reasons I wanted to become a writer. Her book Joy School was my inspiration for trying my hand at writing my first novel. I dissected Joy School, trying in my ever analytical way to find out what made it work. I have pages and pages of notes about the characters, their dialogue, and I even outlined the chapters, noting how many lines of dialogue there are, when each character is introduced, when the different plots wrap up, etc.

I plan to take my pile of notes and ask Berg to sign them tomorrow. (Possibly also slipping her a note that I'm just a fan, not a stalker).  

On a different note, I have GOT to learn to start turning on my cell phone. Yesterday was to be my speed-dating book signing event. I spent the day writing in my p.j's. and showered about 4 PM. Got all "cuted up" for the event and only then did it occur to me I hadn't turned my cell phone on in days.  Turns out I had a message from Sunday night that the event had been cancelled--not enough men signed up (cowards).  I also had 3 other messages waiting for me. Luckily, none of them were urgent.  I am just not a cell phone carrying kind of gal. I'd rather hide.

All was not lost. Since I had gone to the extra effort of applying makeup, I drove to Winston and met Blair for dinner. (I am not one to let an application of eye liner and lip gloss go to waste). And there's another speed-dating event on April 23rd that I'll attend and hopefully that one will have enough people to be a go.

Lots of writing work to do today. Must get to it. 

Pummeled By A Cold

Hack, cough, gasp, sneeze. 

Yup, that's me, at least for the last 24 hours. I had a slight headache Tuesday night which I attributed to the excitement of the competition. But I woke up Wednesday morning (yesterday) with a cold that had grown to full-fledged strength in the night. Wednesday is my busy day in town, so I hauled a box of tissues around with me in the morning and cancelled my afternoon appointments to come home and go to bed.

Last night was unpleasant. I woke up every hour with nausea. This morning is better. I slept in (still in bed, as a matter of fact, as I type this) and am probably going to nap again in a few minutes. The nausea seems to have passed but now my ears are completely clogged up. I have an interview in High Point I'm conducting this afternoon at 2:30 so I'm hoping if I take it easy until then, I'll get through it without too much difficulty.

I'm a wimpy sick person. I head to bed at the first sign of a sniffle. But my body just craves sleep when I'm sick. Allow me 48 hours in bed and I'll be back as good as new.

Only I don't really have 48 hours. The only outing I have today is my 2:30 meeting, which is good. But starting tomorrow, the race is on. My friend Ed Schubert and I are teaching two 45-minute classes at a local high school. They're creative writing courses and the teacher wanted to bring in "real" writers to talk about their work, how they stay motivated, the writing process, the publishing process, etc. It should be a lot of fun although I find myself reverting to high school attitudes and calling Ed to ask, "So what are you going to wear?"

Then tomorrow night, Ed, myself, and another friend Pam are among some writers reading our work at The Green Bean, the same downtown cafe where I held my book launch. It will be short - each writer is reading two 3-minute non-fiction pieces. But I have no idea what I'll be reading and so need to spend today combing my files for something appropriate.

Then Saturday I'm teaching a creative writing course through UNCG and I need to prep for that.  Assuming I make it through all this, I believe I will collapse on Sunday. But not for long, as the speed-dating book signing event is Monday. That's quite a lot for someone who is off the charts on the Myers-Brigg test as an introvert.

But for now....I must nap. (Just threw that in there to make all you working stiffs jealous). <grin>.

On to the DivisionToastmasters Contest

Apologies for the blurry picture. Almost none of the shots I took tonight (or had taken) at the Area Contest turned out. Most of them are too dark to post, this being an exception. Here you see me and the other competing members (and one members son!) from our Area Contest.

I did manage to pull off a win although I suspect it was very close. The gentleman who came in behind me gave a fantastic speech--vivid descriptions and poignant ending. Plus, he had a marvelous British accent--so much more fun to listen to than our boring American tones.  So I felt honored to have won--he was good competition.

The next level is the Division Contest which will be held April 10th. Same speech to be given. After that is the District (state) level and then Regionals. I just learned that after District level all speeches must be original. I thought contestants used the same speech up through the finale but that is not the case. Still, one hurdle to be leaped at a time.  District contest first and I'll worry about the next speech if it comes to that.

Check out the hats on our Area Governor and Contest Chair. The theme was "Hats Off!" to our contestants. I was given a beautiful and surprisingly heavy take home trophy which you see me being presented with here. (Thanks to Lisa Lewis for being quick to grab the camera).

So whew! One competition down. And only two weeks to fret until the next one. =)