More than Necessary

"For the first two years of a child's life, we spend every waking hour trying to get the child to communicate. Then we spend the rest of our lives trying to figure out how we can reverse the process." -Erma Bombeck

Parents have the fantastic job of having a child. Then raising them. Which means feeding, burping, taking care of, getting scratched in the face, performing potty duty, and waking up at 2 AM to soothe the crying child while being frustrated because they don’t know what the baby wants. What parent doesn’t want their child to start talking?

Then the kid reaches the “terrible two’s”. He/she can crawl and walk now, say “no” to nearly everything, and eat a decent array of food. Most of all, they know a basic amount of vocabulary. Unfortunately, if the parents hadn’t supervised their language, the poor innocent kid might be reciting some curse words now and then. Cute, but not good. Regret #1.

Ah, school. It gets more interesting. The child begins to learn more foreign languages, and new information. With no one else to tell their profound discoveries, they unload it in a messy barrage on their parents. “Di’ you know da numba 8 has two circles in it?! COOL!” Regret #2.

And then comes the more dreaded part--puberty and the teenage years. Yes, we understand the mood swings, the different voices, and the modified body parts. But what many parents don’t understand is why their teenagers start getting upset with them for no reason, and refuse to listen. Did puberty plug their ears with something, too?...besides an iPod? Regret #3.

Off to college and beyond. Believe me, I bet parents would be bald by this point after pulling at their hair, wishing their children could just shut up. Luckily, their child finds the special someone. Then they’re whisked away, gone from the house faster than the time it took to spank, feed, house, and raise them. Now the parents wished they had anything at all to talk to…besides to each other. Regr--well, no regrets.

-the clam.

Shivers and Silence

(thanks to whole-person-counseling.com for image)

It’s a natural feeling to be nervous before a class presentation…I think. Maybe not when you’re about to wet your pants because you’ve downed two bottles of water in 5 minutes, or when you’re shivering like you’ve just been thrown into a below-0 degree freezer. I can recall my 4th grade experience with that…well, not the water part, but I was certainly shivering. That presentation I had to make in 4th grade was my first ever class project presentation in my entire life. You bet I was nervous. Don’t worry, it turned out okay. I could have been louder (as the usual), but I was only 9 years old, com’on.

It wasn’t until 5th grade that I had a wider experience with standing up and talking. My 5th grade teacher gave us projects almost every other week…and if you’ve guessed it, yes, we had to present each and every one of those projects. Sometimes it would be a surprise too. Then I’d have to make up a presentation right on the spot.

But the worst came when I had to present my Tanzania project with my partner. That was the worst anxiety attack I have ever had before a presentation. I did both those things I mentioned in the first paragraph…I was drinking water like crazy, and I was shivering all at the same time. When we finally got up there, we only had a maximum of 10 minutes to present. I took up 7 minutes of that time, leaving my partner with only 3 minutes. But oh well, it was good enough, in my opinion.

The only greatest time I ever had with a presentation was with another partner, in 8th grade. It was a PowerPoint presentation, so we had our script right then and there. I feel lucky to have had such a great partner. She was always loud and energetic, so it made me feel more comfortable in the process. When I was speaking, I didn’t really have a problem at all. I was reading the PowerPoint, but at the same time, I was also “teaching” the class too. Looking back, I can’t believe I was able to do that. My partner did the same, and as a result, we got high praises from our teacher. Hey, I like to be a bit conceited now and then.

Public speaking is a pretty tough thing for some people (me included). Just the thought of having to go outside and say something is hard. I’m still going through the process of finding my own voice, myself. For all those other clams out there, you’re not alone. I’m still working on it, and I guess I’m having some progress. I’d have to thank my friends for that, especially those S&D’ers ;). I think I’d throw a party the day I’m able to say “Screw getting nervous and being shy…life is loud and proud!”

-the clam.