On: Easing Public Speaking Jitters

Subhead: Things I Told Myself Tonight That Are Not Actually Helpful

At least it won't be at a funeral this time.

Hang loose.

Psych!

Remember that time the friend you became more than friends with, garbling the friendship until it was time to leave for grad school, showed up at your first class of the semester years later and you taught it with him there staring at you, both of course realizing you were in the wrong more than him? Adjuncts' names often aren't listed in the class schedule, so it might just have been wacky karma that he picked that class to try & enroll in. The part where he had to talk about himself was fun, once the suspense of whether he was going to say something confrontational had diminished. He didn't. Then it turned out the person in charge of these things said there wasn't room for him there. And he won't be there tomorrow. Yeah.

I better have a desk. I'll have a desk. A podium's okay. Not another stage though, please.

Psych!

I wonder if my voice will do that weird thing.

What if I don't feel like talking?

Or I might really start having fun, i.e., start rambling, a mixed bag.

Psych!

One of the other guest speaker people works for MTV, peh modern MTV. I'm not digital, I'm Billy Idol MTV. I'm still picturing transparencies you use hard copies with -- just project the damn printout, was that so bad?

I wish I was one of those people who are super enamored with talking about themselves in public instead of feeling like kind of an asshole for it...

Psych!