Well, that was eventful

Today at Uni there was an I.T event that has been planned for quite some time now... it didn't quite turn out as expected.  Kids from the surrounding high schools came to my University to see presentation and speeches from  professionals, academic staff, career advisers and past degree graduates to promote careers in I.T.  A pretty standard event for me now as this year especially I have been apart of countless events, seminars, presentations and the like, most of which are not blog worthy.  However, this day was quite eventful to say the least.

Each presenter had 8 minutes to speak, most of them were terribly boring but there were a few highlights at least.  My job for the day originally was to give a speech of my own and after wards I would be demonstrating a video game that I made last year as part of my final year project, with the aim being to show the kids what can be achieved at University, that I.T isn't always just computer code and can actually be fun etc.

Typically so I hadn't planned my speech what so ever and instead whilst the other presenters were speaking I wrote my speech on my hand ha!

Half way through the event I was standing next to the main organizer and I asked him when it was my turn to talk, to which he replied that I was not needed (the event was badly organized)... oh well, I had never spoken in front of 70 people before which was a little nerve shattering and now I didn't have to, sweet. Looking down at the blue ink on my hand that represented my 'presentation' didn't really seem very speech worthy anyways ha.

The presenters rolled by (some painfully so...) until we reached a particular speaker by the name of... we'll call him Dom.  Now Dom was a past student at a local Tafe in my area who was completing an I.T degree and was going to talk about his experiences and so on.  It started out ordinarily enough:

"Hey guys, yep I'm Dom, I am from the local Tafe.  My current degree I thought was..."

...

"...Sorry guys, jumped ahead of my self a bit there.  Anyways, my degree is all about..."

...

"...Sorry, hang on... yeah, sorry I am just a bit nervous." *takes a few deep breaths*

...

"Ok, where was I?  Ok, so.  Yes, so my course... it... sorry guys I'm too nervous, I am going to have to cancel, sorry guys."

And he walks out of the room!

Now, I have mixed feelings about this.  On the one hand it was pretty funny, you just don't see people walk out during a presentation like that very often!  Although to be fair, I know exactly how he feels, talking in front of a large audience can indeed be frightening to the point of panic attacks, it was only at that moment I realized I had never spoken in front of that many people before so in a way I am not entitled to laugh.  A small sigh of relief escaped me at the thought that, as excited as I originally was about doing a speech it was kind of nice to know I no longer had to.

That dream however lasted about 5 seconds until the main event organizer turns to me and says "hmm, well, that was odd.  Do you think you could give a speech now?"

I looked at speech written on the palm on my left hand... which made the situation worst ha.  I had come in with the mindset that I was going to give a speech anyways, might as well roll with it!

"Sure" I replied.

The next presenter was absolutely awesome and really woke the audience up, during which terrible thoughts were forming where I too would get to nervous and would have to walk out of the room.  Imagine how bad that would look, two presenters at the same event leaving!  After the great speech by the current presenter... next was me. Yikes! The organizer introduced me... I took the microphone, stood in front of the podium, put my left hand out in front of me to read from...

... and rambled some of the best rambling I have ever done in my life!

Well, apparently anyways.  When I re-run the speech in my mind it seems jumbled, confusing and pretty roundabout... however Sophie (my Honours supervisor), Lee (my fellow I.T Honours student at Uni) as well as the events organizer said it was absolutely brilliant.  Win! I guess =P

It wasn't until many hours later that I realized what an achievement it was (hence the reason for this post).  Previously before today I had only spoken to about 20 people at most... that being last year... which went terribly.  And not just terribly, I am talking really bad.  Cringe worthy.  Anyways.  This year I have progressed so much, you can see from my blog posts in the last few months the continued growth I seem to be achieving this year, constantly accomplishing things that I would never have been able to do even 12 months ago.

It was just nice to be able to add another achievement to my forever expanding list.  It makes me proud of myself, as well as excited for what more increasingly challenging tasks the future has in store for me.

Bring it on I think sums it up nicely =)