Ares Night Performance!!!-The bomb!

Mmmm so today was judgement day and errrrrrr, mmhmm, i bombed-

Well, sort of. After 5 minutes into my speech i sensed that the audience weren’t enjoying it and i quickly cut to the end. Wait let me take you through the entire experience

A few hours beefore the night began, i felt nervous and all….woo…and then i suddenly felt comfortable again. I bounced between these two modes a few times. Anyway, when i went up and got the mike…hmm i felt quite…okay, but then i began and then hmm, the laughs just didn’t come in, my humor fell short, and i felt the audience’s attention drifting. My best humor line bombed although my second-best humor part was partially successful.

Okay, anyway, after i finished, i felt woo…upset and unhappy. I don’t know how to describe my feeling, its like a big sense of loss, of a diminishing of self…i went back to the lt3 and sat around and just felt my feelins, not trying to fight them…but then i didn’t feel like being there so i went out to somewhere i could be alone…and i found some placce and woo, i wasn’t afraid of ghosts! i didn’t care and just sat there, alone…..and then i dunno why but i think alone, i could really let all my feelings come up and then i began to tear…and it did feel good tearing and after i stopped…i sort of wanted to tear again waha…but after i teared, i did feel better

Right now i’m feeling fine now, and from this perspective, well, its easy to say that that was the diminishment of the ego, where my own image of myself was reduced, but at that time, thinking it that way was silly…i knew that the reason i felt so upset was because i had a need to do well, (ironic since my speech was about to stop needing), but the ego structure was there already and it wasn’t as if i could just take it away like…that…

At that point i was just feeling…woo…upset upset…felt like going home and just being with myself…but after a while alone i felt better and went back to lt3…and when the event was over, the soccer people encouraged me and shit and hey, i did feel better when they did that…

then when i decided to go home…ahh on the way i met with mj and jillian and chan yi and they gave me some encouraging words and i began to feel better and better…fact when i reached the bus stop i was almost back…talked to linus and…and i think i because i had thaat sense of loss and healed from it…i was comfortable talking to another new person…much more comfortable than beefore because i already knew i could do it and did do it, but this time it was easy and comfortable…

and then when i started talking to the person, it was a guy from apollo i am so sorry i can’t remember his name…but yea i asked him about my performancce and got some feedback…ahh and when i can do that, it means that i wasn’t hurting from that performance anymore…and then some seniors came to the bus stop too, calvin chia and bryan and jin yang…and we all took 67

and on the bus…it was nice talking to them, and a grandsenior who boarded the bus too…and then i got to know more about calvin chia…talked to him on the bus and on the way home…and once i got home i was feeling pretty good already

So, this experience…a challenge, lots of growth, improvement…its always nasty to bomb on your first performance, but hey, that just means that you take more care in your further performances…and furthermore…if you’re low, you can only go higher than low…

And after that bomb…little things can be worse than that! The next time i do public speaking, there will be less nerves, more confidence, better preparation, feel more comfortable, and have more experience.

I got some feedback and some of these were that the humor wasn’t that right for the audience and erm, the content was out of place…the “feel” was out of place too, after a13’s incredible performance…and it’s true you know…i took a lot of that into account and modified a lot of my speech to suit the audience but guess what, it still wasn’t enough and its simple as that

I fell…so all i need is to pick myself up and learn how to walk again! I learnt much, experienced much, tried something new, something different, and along the way, i got a lot out of it…for a few hours’ worth of unhappiness…that’s quite worth it mm? Okay, i guess the er, preparation energy and effort i put in had to count to, but i wasn’t suffering…i was in fact quite enjoying the process of doing it so i dont think you can call that a sacrifice…

But i want to talk about my feelings when i was upset…at that point, i still had logical thoughts flitting in my head, like “you’re upset cause you need …”, “just pick yourself and do it the next time”, “you bombed, what’s the point of your life now?” and all sorts of that but you just don’t pay attention to them. All you want is to just feel better, be alone or something, or just not thinki about anything and just feel those feelings….and at that point i realised some new things…i wondered…is there a better way to get rid of all those conditioned needs, those egoic patterns and structures? what should i be feeling? what is life for? I had a state and thoughts in which i normally had no access to…

and you know, it made me more clear and more aware of how our egos can really cause us suffering and all, and i’ve just got more motivation to be free,

OMG I GOT IN!~! SUCCESS (public speaking)

Hurrah, my second audition was successful and i got through!

I’ve decided to keep my format similar to the one i used for the second round of auditions with some new humor that came to me.

So readers, attend ares night!

Public Speaking Audition (2)

Today i went for the second round of audition and found out that i had 2 people for my audience. I went through some of my lines again and after pondering how i should deliver them, i decided to cut out the parts that were really iffy. Also, i realised that some humor i wanted to put in wouldn’t work out with an audience of 2 and i had to edit it furthermore.

Before the auditions, i didn’t feel enthusiastic about it. I don’t know why, maybe because its part of my fear that i won’t do well or that my speech wasn’t good, but i didn’t feel like talking about it. I was feeling a bit nervous and wondering how the speech would work with the audience of 2 but anyway, showtime came and i began.

And as i began, i suddenly gained enthusiasm…i was connecting with the 2 people and although part of it was for a much bigger audience, i interacted and communicated with them. As i spoke, i spontaneously cut out even more parts. I stumbed during some parts, However, this time i felt a lot better talking, i had enthusiasm, i didn’t feel like i was dragging, i thought that my points flowed from one to another rather than dragging out a single point and repeating the same things. Shu Fan smiled at some of the humor (or i guess he was smiling at the humor) which encouraged me and after i did the thing, i felt i did a lot better than the previous time.

There’s still lots of room for improvement, and if i get in, i’ll revamp parts of it although i’ll keep the structure the same. After the performance, i felt pretty pleased that i did a much better job than the last time, and even if i don’t get in, i know that i’ve grown and improved, and the next time, i’ll just keep getting better and better.

Learning Public Speaking

These past few days, i’ve been working on the talk im going to present for my audition on Monday. I’ve never done a talk to a large audience before and the idea of doing that is a little scary but i’ve stopped fearing large audiences to the extent that it paralyzes me. In my previous audition which didn’t go to well, as well as during my practise, i’m completely fine with going on the stage but the real issue is to stop feeling self-conscious and connect with the audience.

When i first began writing and planning out my talk, i did some practise and during the rehearsal, i realised that i was getting bored of myself speaking! I checked the time and realised i’d spent 25 minutes and hadn’t even finished it! I realised i had to cut it down a lot, firstly because it was rather dry and secondly, i didn’t think i could drone on for so long without feeling terrible for myself and the audience. I cut it down a lot, so that it would go on for about 10 minutes and then i sort of memorized the things.

When i went for my first audition, bleagh, it was too serious, too dry, and i knew i didn;t connect with the audience. Throughout the talk, i was trying to remember what was the next thing i was goin to say. Even as i talked, i could feel that the audience wasn’t really captivated even though i knew the content was pretty insightful. I tried to emphasize my speech by breathing hard into my mike and it came off as nervous. The audience symphathized and were understanding but i knew they didn’t really enjoy it and i didn’t enjoy it myself. I personally feel that the most important thing in conversations is connection between the speaker and the audience, true, sincere and genuine connection was the most critical thing and i wasn’t able to feel it.

I got some feedback from john and joseph that i was too serious, no humour in it, appeared to be nervous and dry and i agreed. Then, john suggested that i could maybe choose to do the singing thing instead of the talk but i didn’t really want that. I wanted to do the talk to help people, to inspire people and i wasn’t going to be knocked down by a bad first performance. In the end, it turned out that there was going to be a second round of auditions and i’d work harder on my talk.

Some things that came to my mind throughout these days were how to put and use humor in my speech, how to contextualize it and let it connect with the audience, and how to master my talk such that i didn’t have to worry about not remembering what to say or going in the wrong order and could focus on connecting with the audience.

I looked back to stevepavlina’s website for help and yep, i got a lot of resources from it. I was introduced to and learnt some humor techniques and rules and coupled with some inspiration over the days, i gradually put and organised pieces of humor into my talk that i am confident will be quite funny. Some of the humor didn’t work out when i practised it so i refined and took it out. Some ideas came to me and i put them in. Gradually, i had decent amounts of humor scattered here and there so i’ll be keeping my fingers crossed on monday.

Another tip i learnt was to customize the talk for the audience and although i did that to some extent for my first audition, i intensified the process this time round. In fact, many pieces of my humor wouldn’t be understood by people outside of the targe audience. MMMm. I also reworked my approach to the talk to make it more concise, to make it flow better and to make it more acceptable. One problem joseph pointed out was that my talk could easily alienate the audience and cause them to switch off which i knew was a very real problem of many speakers.

When i began reworking it, i became a little bit dismayed when i couldn’t think of humor to put in and became a bit disillusioned at how i was going to work the whole thing out. Then, i reminded myself that this was not for me but for my audience and read some inspiring stories about many comedians and speakers who sucked at the start but persevered to become better and better speakers. That was a great reminder that the point of public speaking is to grow, to learn, to experience, to play, and not to achieve anything. If i failed, i’d have a better chance of succeeding next time. If i didn’t try, i would continue failing.

In the end, my speech/talk is really, really different from the previous one. I completely revamped it, although the theme remained the same and i’m pretty confident about the speech/talk itself. As for the presentation, i haven’t practised it to a great extent yet and i’m not sure i’ll connect on monday.

Either way, it’s been really fun and interesting to learn about and try out public speaking!