What Really Gets on my Nerves

Nerves.  Nothing gets on my nerves quite like nerves.  For me, it does not matter how much I have practiced, how confident I am in what I am saying, how small of a group I am talking in front of-- my nerves will still always get the best of me and it drives me crazy!

This week, for example, we gave speeches in our LA101H class.  I had practiced.  I was well-versed.  I knew what I wanted to say and how I wanted to say it.  But that wasn't enough.  Despite the numerous times I had practiced and the hours I had put into the assignment, when I got up to speak finally in front of the class I knew what was going to happen and you bet your bottom dollar that it did.  Shaking hands.  This isn't something that I am unfamiliar with.  It happens almost every time I do some type of public speaking and it drives me insane!  I can be so confident in my work and feel that I have it down perfect but no matter what the hands will still start to shake.  Then I feel it, I look down once.  Oh no.  The shaking hands is visible.  Suddenly my mind starts running while I talk.  It is all I can concentrate on.  My thoughts run through a few things... Is it all the audience can concentrate on?  Do I look nervous?  Pull it together Kirk!  Stop thinking about it.

It takes me a few minutes, but eventually the nerves calm down and with that, my hands stop looking like the hands of someone with Parkinson's, shaking uncontrollably, and I become confident in what I have to say once again.  But that takes a huge toll on my speech.  Those two minutes of my minor anxiety attack really throw off the entire speech.

So how do I fix this?  In my recent years, I have tried to memorize all my outlines and be well practiced enough in the speech that I do not need to hold any notecards with an outline on them at all.  This way, if my hands start to get the shakes and the trembling begins, it is at least a little less visible than when my hands are holding pieces of paper.  Sometimes that is hard to do though, especially if you only have one or two nights to get to practice the speech.

I can't come up with any other ideas... do you guys have any neat tricks to help calm the nerves before public speaking?  If not, I guess I will just have to survive through life as the shaky hand girl when I get in front of an audience.  Oh well.

-Kirk

It's Halftime in America

There is no arguing with the statement that Chrysler killed it in the arena of Superbowl commercials.  Their commercials, which some of us have already seen, were really strong and had delivered powerful messages.  The commercial that caught my interest the most was "It's Halftime in America", which featured Clint Eastwood as the narrator.

Before reading further, if you have not yet seen the commercial, check it out.

Does it send chills down your spine too?  The straight forward message from the commercial, as most viewers probably interpreted it, is that Chrysler is an American product.  The road the Chrysler took in this advertisement talks about how it is halftime in the football game, but it is also halftime in America.  Clint Eastwood conveys how the teams are in their locker rooms at this moment, deciding what they need to do to pull through with a win in the second half.  It relates this to Americans about how they should pull through for America and buy American products and keep our country consumerism alive by buying Chrysler's domestic vehicles.

This is not the only message that this commercial left me with however.  To me, the commercial is throwing political messages at the audience without many people even realizing it.  It is Halftime America. Obama's first term as president is coming to an end and the 2012 elections are just around the corner.  He is hoping for re-election.  It is just about his halftime and thus halftime for America.  What will our strategy be in the next half?  Will we re-elect Obama?  Will the Republicans take over?  

With the auto bailouts that happened under the Obama administration, it is clear as to why this ad could work as a strong political message.  It is showing how they came back from their hard times with Obama, and America can too.  Also, another piece of information to note, is that the four remaining Republican presidential candidates were all not in favor of the auto bailouts.  It shows how Obama acted in the correct way and the company, and the city of Detroit, are all coming back to power and the "world is going to hear the roar of [thier] engines."  

This is just my take on the commercial.  I see the politics in it.  What about you?  Do you feel that they were trying to convey that message beneath the words of the ad?  Or do you think it was just a straight car commercial?

Talking Beats Silence

This week we learned all about "exigences".  Problems.   Problems that can be resolved through discourse and communication.  Too often, I find that people do not talk out their problems and keep everything that bothers them bottled up until they are about ready to explode.  Do they not realize that by addressing the situation earlier, they can avoid weeks of built up  anger.  For instance, recently I was having problems with my roommate.  She constantly was throwing all of her clothes, trash, and books all over our floor and room to the point where I almost could not walk!  At first, I kept letting it go hoping that she would get the hint when I started constantly picking up after her.  Well, let me tell you, that did not work! So, this past weekend, I told her, as calmly as possible, that we needed to talk.  We went to Redifer dining hall, sat down with our lunches, and I finally confronted her about the situation.  The first thing she responded with was the question of why I never said anything before and that she would of course pick up after herself from now on.  I felt so dumb after realizing that I could of not wasted so much time being annoyed with her if I would of just spoke my mind from the start.   That was an exigence that I held out on addressing and I regret that.

I really think that all things can work out and cause you much less stress if you are willing to handle issues that you are dealing with properly. I want to hear about exigences you all have experienced recently.  Give me some feedback! Anyone else with roomie pains?

I Believe in Second Chances Podcast

I Believe in Second Chances

I slept through the sirens and whistles.  I woke up alone.  The broken coffee mug, which was shattered across the floor, confused me and no one would answer my calls.  Hours later, I was dropped off at the hospital, looking for reassurance but finding none.  My dad had suffered a massive stroke.  The doctors gave him a five percent chance of survival, primarily in a vegetative state.  They expected him to die.  I could not remember the last thing I had said to my dad.  I remember looking around in the small conference room, staring at my mother who had no tears left to cry, watching my aunt slide down the wall to the linoleum floor with her palms to her eyes, covering her sobbing face.  My family was facing a tragedy.  My world, however, was not crushed.  The previous thirteen years of my life, my mom had been everything to me and dad had been a three-letter word.  While he had lived with us in the physical sense, emotionally, his head was always in the bar during my childhood and, quite frankly, I hardly knew him.

The next six months, while he was comatose, I spent more time by his side than I could ever recall previously.  When he woke up half a year later, my dad was different.  His large, muscular body had transformed into an 87-pound sack of skin and bones.  His clamorous voice was lost under the tracheostomy tube, which sprouted from his neck.  He was scared, confused, and helpless, but my dad was also determined.  He started his life over from scratch.  Slowly, he gained his own voice back and began to resemble a middle-aged man again, but that wasn’t close to the hardest parts of the recovery process.  It took months before my dad could even crawl a few feet, but he did it.  Four years and countless surgeries later, my dad, a new man, is struggling day to day to do the simple task of walking.  With his voice back, my dad never fails to tell me he loves me, every chance he has.  He became the father every child yearns to have, and I could not help but love and care for him because of that, even if it was thirteen years late.  It was an inspiration for me to see this man, who had been given a five percent chance of living, striving for and achieving more than could have ever been expected from him, physically and emotionally.  This is how I choose to live my life: beyond the expectations, just like my dad.

I witnessed a miracle. A man, who was heading down the wrong path, was stopped and given a second chance to a life as a better person.  From this experience, I learned that failures can become successes; when people expect you to fail, prove them wrong, get up and walk.  Because of my dad, I believe in second chances.