Plans?

Sometimes things go according to plan, and sometimes there is no proof that a plan ever existed. I was stuck in front of a group of sleepy Jr. high students with a 20 minute talk prepared, which included my scriptural basis, visual stimulation, and activities for the visual and kinesthetic learners . . . and only had 7ish minutes to do it all. I was paralyzed.

What do you cut out? What do you keep? How to do you present the important things when they were the climax of the initial build up. Without the background info, would they make any sense whatsoever? Because I was dealing with younger kids I split my talk into four sections to keep them engaged, but when Gary said that there was only 3 minutes left I felt like I had already failed. I quickly ran through an exercise that I stole from a chic movie, and hoped that somehow a kid would know they are not alone.

Writing about it makes me feel like a bumbling idiot, but the truth of the matter is . . . it was just a bad set of circumstances. Poor planning on their part and inexperience on how to handle it on my part. If this was more like a one time out of fifteen it wouldn’t be as big of a deal, but it’s something like one out of four for talking about the trip – and I had focused on a community/body of Christ aspect for this specific group.

Whateva, whateva. I cannot wait to have a classroom of my own. Public speaking is freakishly impersonal for me, but I’m happy to know that now and can ditch any illusions of grandeur playing through my mind.

Time to pack . . . ugh. Someone want to pack for me?