Friday, January 14, 2011

Speak from your heart

How many of you are chatterboxes? How many of you are scared of speaking to public? How many are BOTH?
I am a chatterbox, and speaking to public wasn't THAT scary, I was growing to like presenting, but two events made me fall in love with speaking and sharing.
On December 31, and today, January 14 I (and 3 others) gave a presentation about our cycle project.
On December 30, Rajashree (my friend) called me up and asked if I was interested in giving a presentation on our project, the bicycle, to American project experts, at school (along with her). I immediately agreed.
I made notes on our project and went to school the next day.
I met up Rajashree, and Tamanna and Ishaan. Those 2 were representing 6-F, and we, 6-E.
Tamanna apparently had the right notes (mine were out of order) and preparing our lines, and notes, we went ready for the speech.
I had to present on history, working in the bike lab, and sketching of earlier models of cycles.
I only had one line in mind, about history : "We saw changes from no pedal to chain, from huge front wheel to huge back wheel, and from our no knowledge to sudden genius-ness."
We had to give 2 presentations, to different crowds.
We were shaky on the first one, messing up the lines. And after that we led the crowd through a small gallery walk, and answered questions.
We were much more confident on our second one, making no mistakes. My line made some people laugh (thank god!), and we had tremendous amount of fun answering the question: Is Gurgaon a bike friendly city?
 We made silly comparisons, and our examples of invention to innovations, were simply funny (steam engine to magnetised metro! Maruti 800 to Lamborghini!)
MAN! It was fun!
 Kanchan ma'am, Jayshree ma'am, and Preeti ma'am, then talked about our project and our eagerness to share showed in our restlessness. Finally we did answer questions and also got to sit in front while Mr. Levy ( our project expert) presented.
The whole experience : FUN!!!!
2 days ago, Mom got an email from ma'am requesting Rajashree and I to present again, with Ishaan and Tamanna to some principals of other schools. Remembering the last time, I readily agreed.
We were nervous to know that we were talking to so many principals, but the tension was broken by discussions of just about anything. (English accents, cures for cancer, singing pigs, you get the point.)
We did end up rehearsing, this time I also introduced. The teachers also wanted us to add some more lines.
We waited quite a while before presenting. I admit, with so much in my head to say, it got a little disorganised as I tried to cramp everything in.
But, while the people were taking the gallery walk we got many questions, which we answered whole-heartedly.
The 4 of us had a lot of fun, enjoying IMMENSELY.
I really want to thank Preeti ma'am, Jayshree ma'am, and Kanchan ma'am for giving us this chance.
So I learned through all this that I loved sharing. I guess the key wasn't in just confidence, but also the fact, I spoke from my heart.

1 comment:

  1. Well done Priya! And, good to see that you are having fun learning new things and working on your projects. I enjoyed reading your blog!!

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