Just a quick one before I have to go get my party store groove thing on…

I had to go to a luncheon for the local Rotary Club for the top five students in all of the area high schools.  It consisted of a room full of men (I shouldn’t say that.  There were, like, four women.), who all seemed to be the very best of friends, cracking jokes about each other, before they made all of the high school seniors there get up in front of them and talk about their high school experience.

Which is fine, in theory.  In real life, though, I didn’t know that we were supposed to give a speech. 

On the letter they sent us, it said that we should be prepared to say a few words about our high school experience, especially about any particular teachers that influenced us the most.  I was all prepared to write and give a speech, because even though I’m not particularly thrilled about public speaking, I can do it when I have a well thought out and executed essay to go off of.

When they talked to us about it at school, though, the administration said that all we had to say was our name, where we were going to college in the fall, and what we planned on studying.

I was all, like, score!  I get out of talking in front of a room of business men who probably aren’t especially interested in what I have to say anyway.

Then we get there, and our school is last to get called up to talk.  All of the other kids from the other four or five high schools start talking about what influenced them in high school, how that will affect what they’re going to do in college, and what teachers they hold in account most for their success.  At this point, I realized that I would have to do the same thing, or else I would look like a total idiot, something I generally try to avoid with mixed results.

Like I said, if I have a chance to think about what I want to say and write it down, I can talk in public.  But I wasn’t prepared for this because I was expecting something totally different.

Luckily, I was the very last student to get up and talk, so I spent a full fifteen minutes racking my brain for things to say, then trying to memorize them as best I could.

When they finally called me up, I was following our class president, who is amazing at giving speeches, and probably didn’t even think about what he was going to say before he said it.  I head up there, a little nervous, but I had in my head what I wanted to say.

This is what came out instead:

“Hi, I’m Susan.  I’ll be attending *Dream School* in the fall to study creative writing.  While I’ve always enjoyed writing, I’ve found that the years I’ve spent at *Undisclosed High School* really helped me to develop my writing skills.  There have been so many teachers who have encouraged me to write, and convinced me that I wouldn’t be happy in my life if I wasn’t writing, and I would regret it if I didn’t pursue it in college.”

That’s not true.  I was going to pursue writing anyway.  There were plenty of teachers who liked my writing, and encouraged me to keep at it, but no one had to convince me or influence me to do it.  I was doing it anyway!

Not to mention, I didn’t say anything about being third in my class, or about being involved in Key Club, National Honors Society, writing for the school paper, and being one of the editors-in-chief of the literary magazine, which I’m fairly certain I was supposed to include.

The good part of the afternoon was that I once again did not fall, despite the fact that I was rocking brown slingbacks with tiny heels that are incredibly wobbly.  Go Susan!

Song of the Day:
“Anyone could see the road that they walk on is paved in gold, and it’s always summer.  They’ll never get cold.” -Fastball, “The Way“