The Typical High School Presentation? [TED Talk Reflection]

This project has officially come to an end! *cries* Throughout the past six weeks, I have been so deeply focused and involved in the project that since it is now finished, there is a somewhat empty feeling rumbling inside of my stomach.

On March 20, 2015, I presented my TED Talk for this whole project! If you want to see the process of making and planning my TED Talk, click here: CLICK

My brain was a pile of goo when I first stepped onto the stage. Sure, my TED Talk was about confidence, but the at-that-moment-oh-you-could-mess-up-your-script-so-bad feeling still did linger despite my Talk's theme.  However, as soon as I was given the sign to begin, the fear and anxiety all washed away. I was soley focused on portraying my message to the audience.

One thing that I felt that was particularly successful about my TED Talk was that I did not hesitate or stutter. This was one of my greatest fears when on stage. I was afraid that my tongue would get tied, resulting in messing up what I planned to say or an awkward silence.  Which is why I am so glad that this was not the case. I also felt that my voice was relatively loud when presenting as well. I tend to come off as a reserved, quieter person at first, and I used to never be able to speak up...much less speak loudly. Right before going up on stage, I told myself that being louder gets rid of nervousness. Of anxiety. Of the fear of messing up. That speaking loudly rather gains confidence. And, interestingly enough, it worked! I am so glad to see such a wonderful end result.

However, with good things, there are always the bad. One of the most skeptical things that I felt about my presentation was that it was just...a presentation. Not a TED Talk, but a good old fashioned, typical high school presentation. Was my speech to mechanical? Was I adding too much information about my process to get my underlying message across? Did I look anywhere close to a person that does TED Talks? I was confused and worried about all of these things. In fact, I am still confused and worried about this. I did divide the types of content in my script into the proportions I wanted them to be in, but even so, I still was slightly worried that maybe, just maybe, I added 10 seconds too much of my process.

But in the end, I learned that even though I may have presented this TED Talk like a typical high school presentation, thie project is definitely not “typical.” I genuinely enjoyed practicing what I love to do during this project and I hope that I will be able to continue on to an even better violin player (I’ll aim for the intermediate level in two years).