Friday, January 6, 2012

Pre-talk anxiety commencing: now

Oog.  I am fed up with being home and inactive.  Unless I'm dying tomorrow, I'm going to go outside and do something.  Or else my back is going to seize up on me entirely.

I got a delivery today.  My new trekking poles came in.  I ordered a pair of Gossamer Gear LightTrek poles to replace my very beat up REI poles.  The REI poles were great, but since I replaced the worn out tips, those tips just don't want to stay on.  Plus the old poles are feeling kind of weird, like maybe something inside is a little loose.  The LightTrek poles are very light at 4 oz each.  The REI poles are probably 8 oz each.  Unfortunately, the weight difference isn't enough for me to notice when I hold them, as it turns out.  Ah well.  I needed new poles, and these are new poles.   I'm looking forward to trying them out on a trail soon.

I also have to do a little work this weekend.  I'm meeting with my Toastmasters mentor on Monday to run through my first speech.  Which means I have to write my first speech.  Or at least work out the details of what I'm going to talk about.  I was surprised that they didn't want you to write it out word for word.  Instead they wanted you to write an outline, then reduce it to one word per notecard.  I'm sure that one word will be a great help when my mind goes blank.  "Green?  Green?  WTF was I going to talk about that's green?"  Yup.  That'll go well.

The easiest thing for me to talk about is backpacking, so I'll do that. I've actually given speeches about backpacking that were much longer than 4-6 minutes - but I was wrung out afterward.  Which is the thing I'm trying to fix.  Sigh.  Anyway, I know I can talk about the trail with one hand tied behind my back.  With my mouth on autopilot I hope I can work on other things to reduce my anxiety - like remembering to breathe.  I hear that helps.

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