Showing posts with label public speaking. Show all posts
Showing posts with label public speaking. Show all posts

Saturday, December 01, 2007

World AIDS Day 2007

I just got back from the local World AIDS day observance. I think this year's was the best yet.
Robert's speech went well, he ended up cutting my opening joke because it was all in the delivery and he wasn't sure that he could deliver when nervous. And I don't blame him because I know I couldn't. He did end up adding in a few of his own bits on the spot but his presentation was moving. I was teary eyed and so were others.

Two of the other speakers were just amazing, Paula and Felix Sirls. I don't think they would mind me mentioning their names since they devote their lives to speaking up about AIDS. They're a married couple who are both HIV positive and they are involved in so many committees and programs that I couldn't even begin listing them all. Their speeches were wonderful. Not only did they speak but the sang and read poetry it was beautiful.
Felix is a writer who has works about being HIV positive and he's had three books of poetry published. I posted the link so that anyone who wants to can check out his work. And if you put their names into a search you can find quite a few different interviews and such by them.
They are amazing people and it was an honor to meet them. I hope our paths cross again.

Here is the speech that Robert gave, before and after some revisions. So it's not exactly the original speech but it's not exactly the speech he gave either.
And since it was about leadership, I just want to ask everyone to please take the time to educate yourself and others about HIV/AIDS, to get tested and encourage others to do so.
Thank you.

Friday, November 30, 2007

The end of NaBloPoMo

The last day of NaBloPoMo and you just know, now that I've failed anyway, I'm not going out in style with the most amazing post ever. In fact, I'm completely slacking off.

I got the speech done. Now Robert's going over it a hundred times. It's weird to listen to how someone else interprets your words. Hopefully, it goes okay. I'm just glad I'm not the one speaking. Although, I was having a bit of panic and frustration yesterday at 11:00 p.m. when I was putting the finishing touches on the speech. It was then that Robert decided to tell me that they had given him a few "bullet points" and statistics that they would really like him to fit in. I felt like the whole beautiful structure of my speech was being ripped apart as I tried to fit in these things and still have it somehow comprehensible. I think in the end it worked out though. I'll probably post it tomorrow along with pictures of Robert speaking and all of the other happenings of the day.

Thursday, November 29, 2007

Well NaBloPoMo is a bust but the speech thing might work out

I can’t believe it either. Only three days left and I blew it.
I didn’t get out of work until nine and I by the time I got home and settled in there were only a few hours left to post. I started checking my e-mails and other blogs. I got to my blog, read through the awesome comments, which I’ll get to in a minute, and then I got kicked off.
I went through all the checks and reboots to try to get back on. Nothing. The orange light that means no connection remained. So I called and spent my last hours of the day on the phone trying to sort it out until I some how got disconnected and decided I would just try again tomorrow when I wasn’t about to fall asleep.
If you’re reading this now, it obviously got straightened out.
Apparently, I accepted an update to my online protection sometime when I was online. It set all my settings to the highest possible, which reset some passwords for my DSL and made it impossible to go to any site. Or something. I'm still confused about it really. At least I'm online now.

So I didn’t end up completing NaBloPoMo but oh well. The site had problems and seriously confused me so really I was just participating as a challenge to myself. I’m still a winner. I posted almost everyday and sometimes the posts were actually good.

I’ve been working on the speech all day. Thanks to everyone for their help in the comments. After posting about the leadership speech and Green Christmas, I’m starting to think that I should just post about an idea and let everyone else write it in the comments. I got so much great advice from the comments that this speech is writing it self.

I started with an outline that consisted of elements such as an opening joke, then a famous quote, followed by a little bit of life story. After that are some statistics. Then it talks about what it takes to be a leader, such as people to follow. Concluding with how each of us can be a leader.
It’s all coming together. I’ll be sure to post it when I’m done. Thank you to Melissa, Jenni and D.B. Echo for all the help.