Although I liked all of the speeches, I must say that I liked the speech Charles gave the most. I think he's a natural story-teller with a talent for keeping his audience engaged and entertained. A good part of why this speech kept me so involved was his pace. It was very fast paced, but that only added to the excitement that was building up inside of me while listening. Along with the pace, his imagery was excellent. I became a WLP major because I truly appreciate the way a book can conjure up all sorts of images and thoughts within your head. The speech Charles gave was filled with so much vivid description and layers of thought that it put me in that same state of mind as a good piece of literature would. The images of our young Charles running amuck on the playground and all the things following it ran wildly through my head. When his mother came to the rescue, I couldn't help but laugh at the image in my head of the utmost embarrassed Charles being cradled and smothered with love. Even now I'm smiling about it. An excellent speech indeed.

I'm nervous about giving the narrative speech. I've never been good at telling stories, unless it's just one other person listening. I'll do just fine then, but if I happen to look over and see that more people are listening, I start to lose my train of thought, start to stutter, my mind goes blank, and this is all usually followed by a brief period of anxiety. In the time that I regather my thoughts, I've usually lost the interest of my audience.
So now, to make giving stories even more complicated, I have certain guidelines and techniques that I have to apply, such as gestures and facial expressions. It makes me want to yak just thinking about it.
As for our workshop day, I think it went well. My partner was quite honest about his reaction to my outline, and I really appreciated it because I got a sense of what it sounded like from another angle. It made me realize that I had to tidy things up a bit. It appears that perhaps I'm being a little too general, I need to put more emphasis on my main point so that it's clear. I have a few ideas, we'll see how they work out.

I must admit that upon entering this class I was quite intimidated. I'm not a big fan of public speaking; I've always been self-conscience when put on the spot for any reason, especially in front of a group of strangers. Now that the chaos of starting a new semester has passed, I've been getting more open to the idea of this class. *Hey, that ryhmed!* I chose to go to college for the purpose of educating myself in a way that I can better myself. I'm not so much intimidated by the class anymore; I want to take this oppurtunity to overcome my fears of public speaking. And even that doesn't happen, I will surely walk away from the class with better communication skills. I win either way, right?