The Animator

I was presenting a short slide in one of my classes, in front of about 30 people and a teacher. Not even that many people.

I wouldn’t necessarily consider myself shy, I’ve gotten a lot more confident over the years, but I still hated talking in front an unwilling audience (which they definitely were).

So I walked up, put my slides on the big screen, and I was sweating like a freaking pig. Face red, hands damp, the room was suddenly way too hot for the sweatshirt and sweatpants I was wearing.

I stuttered every single sentence (I do stutter, but it’s mostly gone when I’m talking with friends or family). I swallowed without meaning to, I struggled on too many words. I knew how to pronounce every single one but my mouth didn’t think so.

Maybe I’m exaggerating, but now that it’s over with I’m not relieved at all. It sucked, I hated it, if you think it’s not that bad it definitely seemed very bad for me.

Thank you for coming to my Ted talk.

Also my health teacher let us go on our phones and watched some mildly educational Food Theory on the projector which was cool.