Welcome!

Welcome to my blog! This is going to be my fun blog, where I post pictures, and tell stories and just have a good time. For a little more serious 'blogging' see my other blog "Swimming Through Life".

I was recently admitted to a bachelors program through Eastern Illinois University and as a jump-start to my Fall 2010 coursework, I enrolled in an 8-week speech class this summer at Parkland Community College; apparently my manual communications (sign language) wouldn't transfer. I am terrified of public speaking and it is obvious.

So, last nights speech was horrible. My topic was one I knew very well and I had (If I do say so myself!) an awesome visual aid. I made a 24 x 36 poster of The Freedom Trail in Boston. I made a copy of a black and white map, then used a red marker to trace the route, and printed pictures of the 16 historic sites along the trail and pasted them around the red trail, drawing blue lines to where each of them were located along the trail. The best thing on my poster was the red brick trail at the top with one of the golden "The Freedom Trail Boston" medalions in the middle; very classy looking!

Even with all this, I started poorly and never recovered. I think at one point I actually forgot the English language as I studdered and stammered and kept saying "umm". The more I said "umm", the more I tried to stop, but it backfired. My face felt like it was 150 degrees as my voice waivered like a teenage boy going through puberty, and I could feel the red spreading; I'm sure my classmates could feel my pain. I forgot the points I wanted to make in the order I had laid them out on paper. I had this awesome tag line of 'bringing the past into the present.' Do you think I said it once? Nope. Not once.

Two more speeches are left and then I am done, and I can return to the shadows where I am happy. I just hope I make it that far.