The Best Night Ever

To give you some background, I used to act and sing a lot in my high school/college years. I was very comfortable in front of an audience. I loved speaking extemporaneously. Then I had my stroke where I not only had trouble speaking, I also lost all my confidence in speaking. For a year I thought I sounded like a stilted retard so I just avoided speaking when I could.

In fall 2003, when I entered the MBA program, I was a complete anxious, emotional mess. I had crying jags (or weekends), sleepless nights filled with self doubt and dread. I didn't think I was smart enough for the program and since usually 50% of my grade was volunteering class, I felt trapped. Every course I took, there was a presentation. Semester after semester, I couldn't get over my nerves. I knew I didn't sound like I had a stroke but every stutter or misplaced consonant was like someone jabbing me with a hot poker. I remember after my first presentation in fall 2003, I left class immediately and spent the ride home crying rather than joining my friends for a drink. If I had notecards, it was even worse. My hands shook or I lost my place when I try to do the whole glance up eye contact thing.

The self doubts and mental lashing has eased up over the last year thanks to many things: medication, a great job, therapy, and kicking ass in classes. I always volunteer in class nowadays. My favorite time to volunteer is at the beginning of class when everyone is hesitant to say anything and just gives the professor blank looks.

Why was tonight the best night ever? I had a group presentation. It was the most last minute, ill-prepared presentation I have done in 4 years. We had good data but we couldn't find time to pull together the presentation and basically we spent a second before class assigning who would say what. It turned out that our group was second to last for a 1.5 hour class. This worried me because I am so programmed, I expected my speech to get crappier as I get more tired.

What happened? I was fine, I made a couple jokes, and only stumbled once. Not only that, I had a classmate ask me if I take acting lessons! She told me that she could imagine me doing the news. It's been a while but I'm back baby! For some reason, "Southern Cross" by Crosby, Stills & Nash is in my head now. Think about how many times, I have fallen...