Samantha Duits
Comm 110
Sean McMurtry
Wednesday, December 5, 2018
One thing that a lot of people say will help calm your nerves when you must give a speech is to imagine the audience in their underwear. Now I honestly don’t have the slightest idea why anyone would think that is such a wonderful idea. I have a hard enough time seeing the audience fully clothed, let alone in their underwear, which is personally the most nerve-wrecking thing in the world. I am a shy person, so I instinctually avert my eyes from just about anyone that makes eye contact. If I think twelve other people are wearing nothing but underwear in class, the last thing I want to do is make eye contact. Thankfully, this is not something that I reverted to this semester, and I am very thankful for that. For this fact, as well as others, I feel I deserve an B.
Most people are inherently nervous about speaking in front of people, so I’m sure that’s something you hear more times than you can count each semester. One of the biggest reasons that I have always been so terrified of speaking in front of people is because of how low my self-esteem has always been. Now, I know we’re all adults and there’s no reason to feel that your classmates are silently judging the way you look or the way you speak. That is the logical thing to say to yourself when you have these fears. You tell yourself that all the time, even when you’re not in class. “No one is judging you”. “No one cares how you speak or how you look”. I would even tell myself that while other were giving their presentations, trying to calm my nerves, and I would be okay. Up until I had to walk up to the front and begin my presentation, I was calm, ready to get up there and talk to my classmates.
Now, I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking “why is this twenty-seven-year-old woman giving me a sob story about how she has low self-esteem?” My being able to still go up there and look the same people I thought were tearing everything about me apart in their heads in the eye is my bigg...
