One of the most memorable writing experiences I have had occurred my senior year, when I was awarded Salutatorian. As you may know, Valedictorians and Salutatorians are both required to give a speech at the graduation ceremony. I was given one month to come up with the most convincing and interesting speech that could possibly come out of my head.
On first receiving the news that I had to give a speech, and there were no exceptions, I was overcome with anxiety. A million thoughts zipped through my mind as I tried to figure out what to include in my speech. Should I take a more serious approach and risk boring people, or be myself and put a goofy flareon this speech that would soon be mine? I also contemplated on whether I should talk about my classmates asa whole or individually. All I knew was that I had a rough month ahead of me.
Procrastination and myself know each other very well. I did not begin writing my speech until a week before graduation. Part of the reason was because I could not figure out what to say, and the few things I knew I wanted to say, I did not know how to put onto paper. Things sounded great in my mind, but it was just a matter of getting those thoughts written down. With time running out, I started to get desperate and began panicking. I had one week left and had to make this speech memorable.
My desperation started to get the best of me and I began searching on the internet for good ideas and topics to include in graduation speeches. When that did not help, I was tempted to take a graduation speech alreadywritten by someone else, and "make it my own". The thought of taking somebody else's speech seemed good for a split second, but I finally came to my senses. First off, that would be stealing, and even if nobody but myself knew that "my" speech came from the internet, I knew it was still not right. I started looking in different directions.
One of my favorite things to do is look up quotes that have a specific meaning. I searched on websites for good graduation quotes, and stumbled upon a few that really spoke to me. I decided to center my speech off of a couple of the quotes that spoke to me the most. Surprisingly, this technique worked very well for me. I was not stealing somebody else's work, but rather incorporated a few quotes from writers into my speech, and made it my own in a sense.
My speech was only a page and a half, but I felt that it was the best speech that I could muster out, and I was proud of my work. I got out every point that I wanted to, and discussed the things I found important. My speech was mainly for my fellow classmates, and consisted of mostly words of encouragement, which I felt was most appropriate for graduation. "Graduation is not the end, but merely the beginning" was my theme. I also decided to refer to my class as a whole, and managed to fit in a little bit of how much they meant to me, which was also an important part of my speech.
When graduation night rolled around, I was mixed with emotions. I was excited because I was finally graduating, but nervous because I knew my speech was ahead of me. The music started, and I made my way to the stage, my legs trembling as I walked up the stairs to the podium. I picked up the microphone, greeted and thanked everyone that came, and proceeded with my speech. As I started speaking, I became more and more comfortable with hearing my voice magnified among the many people in the auditorium. I had confidence in my speech, and myself, which radiated out of me into the crowd. I think having confidence while giving a speech is very important and helps to make one's speech more convincing, which is what I practiced about 50 times in front of the mirror the night before graduation.
After I delivered my speech, I felt relieved and proud of what I had accomplished. I had written an amazing speech and read it in front of a big crowd, which is something I have never done before. The writing experience for my speech may have been a grueling one, but all of the anxiety was well worth what I got to experience when it was over. I survived two things my graduation night: one of the hardest writing experiences of my life, and over-coming my fear of delivering a speech in front of a crowd. I can only hope that today my classmates still remember the words of encouragement I delivered to them, because giving my speech at graduation has been one of the most memorable moments in my life.
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