When a Nightmare turns Sweet

As the nightmare unfolds, I saw myself scrambling in cold sweat. The rest of competitors are just as clueless; they were watching the speaker, prowling for visual cues to 'pin' him down. But he wasn't any ordinary speaker. His speech was one from the Advanced Manual of Interpretive Reading, a speech that no sane soul has even ventured into.

My mind kicked into survival mood as I reminded myself that it's a do-or-die mission. I have never done a '1st evaluator' role in a contest setting before. 5 mins was all I have. To add more time to myself, I was scribbling towards the end of his speech. When we proceeded towards a private room, I was the first contestant to sit down and start scribbling. I shouted to the timer to give us an occasional update on the remaining time. He did, and that forced me to go into overdrive. My final minute was spent re-writing my thoughts into 6 main points on a small piece of paper. That was enough to do the trick, i.e to act confident in front of the audience.

Going first has its privileges. The crowd laughed at my jokes. The crowd took my evaluation as original. The rest of the evaluators had stale jokes. The rest of the evaluators had unoriginal scripts. Thought I could have stretched my evaluation a little longer, it was commendable, given the limited time I had in composing my thoughts. During my 3 mins of performance on stage, I made 3 personal references to his speech, maybe that personal touch got me the votes of the judges.

The result was unexpected - a 1st runner-up. It was beyond my wildest expectations. A first attempt at Division S level against a strong field of seasoned competitors & I truimphed.

Maybe Optimism within a Nightmare will indeed produce light amidst darkness.

An Evaluator's Worst Nightmare

I was participating at the Division Level Speech Evaluation Contest for the first time. For many years, I have been part of the audience, watching the best showing off their skills. To be competing at such a level is already an honour by itself, but I know I wasn't there to make up the numbers. I was there to prove that I can indeed be amongst the best. But it wasn't an easy journey for me to compete at such a level.

The following was how the nightmare turned out:
1. It started off when I recalled that GC, RL, GH have all represented Cheng San, but they have never gotten into the Top 3.
2. I expected only 5 contestants, but it turned out that there would be 6 contestants - 1 additional rival. In terms of statistics, my chances of being a prize winner has just dropped by 17%.

3. Butterflies began to form in my stomach, as I realised that I am up against a strong field. I knew 4 of the 5 competitors. They were seasoned evaluators who have clocked my milage on the stage than me. My % just dropped a few more notches.
4. The nightmare heightened when balloting begins. As luck has it, I was chosen to go first. That's never a favorable position, because the first evaluator always have to rush through his thoughts and crystallise his speech in a short span of 5 mins.
5. The climax was when the test speaker came up and delivered 3 complex and 'cheem' poems as a speech. Titled 'Poems to Inspire Singaporeans: Patriotism, Tolerance and Forebearance', it took the worst form of torture for all evaluators because it wasn't an ordinary speech, but one which was delivered by a passionate poet. It just brought back memories of how I deserved my 'F' for my literature during Secondary School days.

The mightmare has indeed unfolded...

I am not funny

I thought I was born funny. Afterall, I cracked jokes with ease, I often made people laugh and I was the humorous speech champion. On hind sight, maybe my jokes were lame, these people laughed so as to be kind to me and I probably won by fluke.

I thought I was born funny. Afterall, I got into the finals of PA Humorous Speech Challenge. I was my dream to compete on the big stage. But I guessed I subconsciously wanted more; I wanted to do the best and try to win a trophy on home ground.

The truth is often ugly. Home ground advantage stands for nothing, if I do not have the natural ability nor the material in me to see me through. Today was the day I come to realisation that I am far from making people laugh with ease.

To see myself fail on the big stage today - I am beginning to find my failure as funny.

Being Evaluated on Teaching

I often evaluate & teach people. Today, I was being evaluated on my teaching. It wasn't a 3-min evaluation. Afterall, I was evaluated for my entire day's worth of efforts. It wasn't easy - venturing into this unknown of facilitating a class. As much I could have prepared everything, I realised that teaching is an art that needs to be practised in order to be mastered.

The list of suggestions for improvements include:
(i) Assigning students to teams - prior to the lesson,
(ii) Walking around the class on a more frequent basis,
(iii) Using the class resources effectively, such as the speakers, to garner more attention
(iv) Letting students complete their statements before questioning them,
(v) Not giving them the answers too early nor too fast,
(vi) Checking on the students' progress throughout the meetings,

(vii) Not releasing the students too early, especially for the 1st meeting,

(viii) Noting down & rememberin the students names and their contributions,
(ix) Encouraging more discussion prior to issuing the problem statement, and
(x) Giving the students more time to ponder over my questions.

It's a long list of recommendations. Facilitation is different from public speaking. Today has been a draining but fulfilling day. With more classes to conduct, I guess I can only improve. The above list looks daunting, but I guess it's a wake-up call that I am indeed still grappling with a new skill set. As I work on perfecting an item a day, it might take quite a while before I consider myself proficient at this.