I apologize to my three loyal readers that I haven’t blogged as frequently as I wanted.  But, on the bright side, that minimizes the probability that I am spouting rubbish for the world to read.  For this article, I will follow up with Part2 of the article, as promised.

Last time I talked about how to make connections with steady contact.  Rehearse with that in mind, by having inanimate objects as your audience.  Affix your eyes as you talk, and don’t let them wander.  As you have ‘mastered’ this technique—and I haven’t yet—then you can have more confidence in the more advanced methods.  I will talk about how to leverage Body/Stage Movement to your advantage.

It’s been a while since I made my last Chatter blog.  Truth be told, it’s not due to my extra workload (though I have been busier than before), or the extra time spent working on my speech.  In the past 2 weeks, I have come to realize the skills gap between me and what I want to be as a public speaker.  Ironically, the more I learned about myself, the more I feel that I am inadequate.  And I have learned quite a bit lately, through my own video-recordings, the feedbacks for my contest speech, and the increased exposure to the great speech-delivery posted on Youtube.   It has been disheartening.   As the webmaster of CCTMC, one of my responsibilities is to give pointers to the readers.   Not the best of time to give pointers, when my confidence as a speaker has been quite low.  

Am I being moody?  It seems that I've been here before.  Felt like this before.  Acted like this before.  Like I didn't belong.  Like I'm out of place.  What am I doing at Toastmasters?  Perhaps it's a sign of burn out, after thinking breathing and living speeches for weeks in a row.  And then realizing that it was all for naught:  That the speech is still not good enough.  That my damn flaws are so difficult to correct.  That I still cannot connect with the audience.  Have I wasted my time in the past 9 months?  

Wow!  That was tough.  For the opening speech, I prepared for 3 days, had multiple rehearsals, including 2 video-taped ones.  I mentioned in my previous chatter, that there are specific corrective steps I wanted to focus on for this speech.  Vocal tone and body language.  After reviewing the video of the speech at the meeting, I think I have made some progress in these areas.  I want to briefly touch on my self evaluation.  (note, the link to my opening speech will be available soon)