thursday january 15

today i had my first session of a class in which we're meant to improve our public speaking skills. in the first of two exercises of the day, we were implored to get up and "tell everyone about ourselves." given the often unfortunate first letter of my last name, i went first, with little time to prepare and no previous examples to get an idea of what we were expected to say. in the second exercise, we were to practice "ad-libbing." the instructor asked a question ("who was the biggest influence on your life and why") to the person at the front of the class, then proceeded to ask the same question to the next nine, giving them a chance to prepare material and make it not so much an ad-lib. when he came to me, he posed a new question to discuss ("what was your favourite toy growing up") for the only time during the session, rendering my carefully prepared words on my life's influences moot. the remaining 20+ people behind me also received my question. the upshot was that for two of the three times someone was actually put on the spot to talk with no time to prepare, i was that person. i felt like this was a personal attack on me, and it has resulted in it being my least-anticipated class to return to next week.