Reflection Speech

I decided to open with telling the audience to peer into the containers sitting on the podium. The objects inside? The subject of my first speech: Marimo. Over the course of my college speech class at Butler County Community College, we, the students, were going to give a total of three speeches: an informative speech, a persuasive speech, and a final speech of our choice. The informative speech was our first full-length speech and it had to be—Give or take 15 seconds—six minutes long. Of course, we didn’t jump straight into giving speeches. We prepared by reading our speech book and reviewing what it said during class. We learned how to properly outline a speech and how to voice our speeches. However, none of that seemed to help my nerves.

Nevertheless, that’s 16 (including the instructor) extra people that I have to talk in front of. While they stare at me. While I quiver inside my shoes. While I pray I don’t vomit. For the first speech, I decided I should probably about something that I had some prior knowledge on. After careful deliberation, I picked Marimo; the fuzzy little algae balls that usually sit in a water-filled, glass jar on my dresser. They grow about half a centimeter a year and make my heart happy. Although I was talking about something that I was comfortable with, something felt off. That thing was the fact that for my first speech I foolishly decided that it would be a good idea to give a demonstration as well. It’s not that the demonstration on its own was hard, it’s that my hands would be shaking and I wouldn’t be able to read off of my script as I showed the audience how to clean a Marimo. I knew how to do it—I’d done it countless times—just not if I could do it in front of a crowd. Doubts crept in again, Maybe you bit off more than you could chew with this

I don’t know how I made it back to my chair without dissolving into a pool of jello on the floor. It would have taken the janitors forever to clean me up. But, alas! I successfully made it back to my seat, breathing hard, legs wobbling, but feeling relieved to have my speech done and over with.
“What did you think?” Katy addressed the class.
“It was good,” A handful of students replied. “Why was it good?” She tried again.
Replies of, “She was conversational,” and, “She related her topic to the audience,” followed. None of those comments carried much meaning to me. All that mattered was that I made it through my speech without forgetting anything or upchucking my lunch. Those niggling doubts in my mind disappeared into a cloud of smoke. No more thoughts like, “You can’t do this,” or, “You’re going to fail,” snuck into my mind. I knew that this wouldn’t be the last time I would be nervous about something. I did know, however, that I could do almost anything if I just took a deep breath and pushed