Dear All,
We are very glad to advise you that Asta Lee has won the third place in the Division H - Evaluation Contest on the 10th. She made a fantastic evaluation speech in the contest. I personally like the opening of her speech very much!
If you have missed her performance in the contest, a VCD featuring the whole program of the contests will be available soon. Once it is available, I will send out an email for you to loan, so that you can also experience both the fun and excitement sides of the contests.
Congratulations to Asta!
Cheers, Rita Tsui
You won't believe it but it was the first time I was speaking without fear. As I recalled the experience, two things might have contributed to this.
ReplyDeleteThe moment I learnt that I would be the first speaker my nervousness started to subside. I had viewed it as another opportunity to test how much I had grown since I was last the first speaker.
This time, I changed my plan. I decided that the five minutes preparatino time had to be used to rehearse the outline of my evaluation. Everything else had to be decided as soon as the test speaker had finished her speech.
And I tried that. When I was reheasing the outline, I discovered that I had to say the areas for improvement first or else the opening wouldn't fit. "That's a wild attempt!" I was talking to myself. "But why not? Nobody is at stake."
In retrospect, when I was coping with critical situations, I had focused out. There was no room for nervousness. The experience? I was totally in the moment. I had no problem saying everything I wanted to say. Suddently I saw the time signal - red card. When was it raised?
That was the most rewarding evaluation I had ever done.
The next time I will go for quality. I hate to be the first speaker but love to see how I respond to the situation.
This is the power of a contest.
How to handle nervousness? All conscious efforts.. deep breaths, relax... don't work on me. Ignore nervousness. Leave it to take care of itself.