06-09-2013, 07:41 AM
Greg, the speech you suggested would have been a vast improvement over what I gave. Of the 12 winner speeches, mine was the complete embarrassing flub -- not just embarrassing to me but everyone in attendance for me. That bad.
Many factors contributed. The first was my decision to have some major points in mind but not prepare anything. I hate it when someone reads from a paper. So it would be much more sincere that way. The time comes, the show is like two minutes from starting, and a Chinese girl kneels next to me. "What are you going to say?" she asks. She's the translator, and she'll be repeating everything I say in Chinese. I tell her I don't know what I'll say. She seems rather flustered by that. So I get out a pocket notebook and jot some illegible text, filling one small page. I have to tell her what it says. She keeps saying, "Is that it? Is that all you're going to say?" I tell her yes, because I don't want to be flipping pages up there. Likely they will be dumping stuff in our hands,and even though they're saying we'll have the podium, I don't trust them. She's laughing a bit, incredulous at how little I have to say. Well, they just forced me to the short track, as far as I'm concerned.
I'm second to last, and the other winners are giving amazing and elegant speeches. I mean, really good. An hour or so has elapsed by the time they reach me, and by then I've decided to hell with it; I'll give my more spontaneous speech, which will be more genuine. The translation girl can just give the short version. So finally the guy who just finished his speech hands me the mike. It's like I feared. We don't have the podium. We're standing in the open on stage, needing to hold two things in one hand, along with our speech notes tucked behind, which is my tiny notebook, just in case. And in the other hand the mike. I get 5 words into my free-wheeling speech and the guy up next grabs my mike and lifts it up higher towards my face. He doesn't think it's working. Now I'm not certain what he's doing. As it turns out, it was fine. But he threw me. Making matters worse, the translator girl on the other side of me is now trying to shove her mike into my hand, thinking there's a problem with my mike. I think the guy communicates to her that he was mistaken and all is well, because then she withdraws the mike as I reach for it. Now I have no idea where I'm at, and I need to look down at my notepad and just read from it as a fallback. But my writing is so sloppy I can't make it out. So I blather as few more words and that's it. Utter disaster.
Who needs nightmares when one can have them in real life?
Oh well. I still get the thousand.
Many factors contributed. The first was my decision to have some major points in mind but not prepare anything. I hate it when someone reads from a paper. So it would be much more sincere that way. The time comes, the show is like two minutes from starting, and a Chinese girl kneels next to me. "What are you going to say?" she asks. She's the translator, and she'll be repeating everything I say in Chinese. I tell her I don't know what I'll say. She seems rather flustered by that. So I get out a pocket notebook and jot some illegible text, filling one small page. I have to tell her what it says. She keeps saying, "Is that it? Is that all you're going to say?" I tell her yes, because I don't want to be flipping pages up there. Likely they will be dumping stuff in our hands,and even though they're saying we'll have the podium, I don't trust them. She's laughing a bit, incredulous at how little I have to say. Well, they just forced me to the short track, as far as I'm concerned.
I'm second to last, and the other winners are giving amazing and elegant speeches. I mean, really good. An hour or so has elapsed by the time they reach me, and by then I've decided to hell with it; I'll give my more spontaneous speech, which will be more genuine. The translation girl can just give the short version. So finally the guy who just finished his speech hands me the mike. It's like I feared. We don't have the podium. We're standing in the open on stage, needing to hold two things in one hand, along with our speech notes tucked behind, which is my tiny notebook, just in case. And in the other hand the mike. I get 5 words into my free-wheeling speech and the guy up next grabs my mike and lifts it up higher towards my face. He doesn't think it's working. Now I'm not certain what he's doing. As it turns out, it was fine. But he threw me. Making matters worse, the translator girl on the other side of me is now trying to shove her mike into my hand, thinking there's a problem with my mike. I think the guy communicates to her that he was mistaken and all is well, because then she withdraws the mike as I reach for it. Now I have no idea where I'm at, and I need to look down at my notepad and just read from it as a fallback. But my writing is so sloppy I can't make it out. So I blather as few more words and that's it. Utter disaster.
Who needs nightmares when one can have them in real life?
Oh well. I still get the thousand.
I'm nobody's pony.