On Tuesday night, I gave my speech in front of the class of around 60 people and the chairman of the board of Energen Corporation. I spoke without using any cue cards and created my visuals so that I could not fall victim to the ultimate cardinal sin of presentation: reading of text directly from powerpoint slides. I think I did an okay job, but I became really nervous the very second I opened my mouth. Was cool and calm before then. I forgot to mention a couple of things that I had practiced. The challenge was to adjust what I planned to say in the ten minutes before saying it, in response to the preceding presentation by the board chairman. I was a bit nervous about that, since I had something memorized and had so much going through my mind as to what last-minute changes I should make.

I don't get a lot of opportunities for public speaking since my job requires only occasional speaking responsibilities. I asked my manager for permission to take a public speaking course, and could not find a single offering in the city of Birmingham. It looks like one must travel to a large city such as Atlanta or Chicago for such training. So I decided that I'll join my company's Toastmasters club when I'm done with school this semester. I think that public speaking is something that could be fun if I could just get up and speak in a relaxed manner like I would when talking to friends. I don't think a class is going to help that much, anyhow. This is a skill that improves with lots of practice.