This has been my very first time at the meeting. There were over 15 people-most of them from SoftServe. Being a new person there, I was called to try to give my first small impromptu speech on a given topic (common practice with the beginners). The theme I had to speak about for 2 minutes without any preparation turned out to be Philosophy of life: should we take life serious or not. I morally supported the first 4 speakers because I realized that it was very hard to talk about different things for 2 minutes. Feeling that my turn may come too, I was trying not to be nervous; however, it was extremely difficult to control the emotions. My heart was pumping so hard that I could hear the beat in my ears and my mouth got really dry. I was thinking what kind of challenge was awaiting for me and whether I would be able to accept it from the Toastmasters.
When every guest got a chance to speak my time has also come. Doubting for a few seconds, then I stepped on the floor while everyone’s eyes were watching me. The topic was quite deep, and I was thinking how to unveil it well in 2 minutes while being evaluated by attentive Timer, captious Ah-counter, precise Grammarian, and prudent speech evaluator. I started to speak and my hands immediately moved to the pockets because I couldn’t figure out what to do with them yet understanding it was wrong. When I saw green and yellow sign on the Timer’s devise I knew that I was reaching the final point of my speech. Without a blink of my eye I saw a red sign—had to finish the speech. Hurrah!
I felt a huge relive going back to my seat. Being a part of auditory it seemed to me so simple to go and speak in front of the people: it’s easy to get up and talk about general things without much of thinking and preparation, all you need is a good English vocabulary and ability to put the words together. Hell No!! Go try yourself?
Yulia Kovalyova
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