Dancing through life

Since I do not have the time to write new posts here and I do have to make the time to write my speeches for Toastmasters, I decided that I will post my speeches here, with minor edits!

This was my 3rd speech, focusing on 'getting to the point', with a broad purpose and a more specific one, titled 'Dancing through life'.

I used to dance for money. Shocking!

Toastmasters and honored guests, it’s not what you think. 

My mom put me in Chinese folkoric dance classes when I was 5. From that young age, I performed every year at the annual dance show, the televised Spring Festival show, the Chinatown festival show....anything related to Chinese community in Mauritius. Then, in my teenage years, I started performing at hotels on a weekly basis for pocket money. Mauritius being a multicultural country, hotels aim to showcase the diversity every night with a different cultural show. The Chinese show was on every Friday or Saturday night and I did that for about 5 years. What have 5 years of dancing for money taught me? Well, believe it or not, it has taught me a few ways on how to cope with real life situations. Let me give you 3 examples.

Performing the same routine every week does not mean you have a flawless performance each time. In fact, you rely so much on muscle memory and habit, that you allow your mind to drift away during the dance. Countless times, I have missed a step or let go of my prop which resulted in me seemingly doing my own thing on stage. Here comes lesson #1: if you do not know where you are going or you have forgotten the next step, move in the general direction everybody is going.  Even if you are not doing the same pirouette as others, the audience might not notice a mistake if you are moving with the pack. In life as in a performance, we need to know where to go, or anticipate the next move. Sometimes you feel out of sync with other people or sometimes you feel like you are behind as compared to others. The important thing to remember, is that it is okay to lag behind, as long as you catch up with others, preferably before the end of the dance. It is that much easier to fall back into the dance if you are already moving in the right direction.

What happens if you cannot mask your blunder and you are mortified with embarrassment? Lesson number 2 is to smile and keep moving. Nobody will notice your mistake if they are too busy looking at your smile. A professional dancer smiles even if she misses a step, it is the dancer’s ultimate poker face. When a dancer makes a mistake, she has to fight her own panic-stricken thoughts, quickly think of the next move, and force her body to move faster to catch up while smiling brilliantly. Sometimes in life, we are caught off-guard and we let our emotions show in that moment of complete panic. I have learned to put a smile on even when I’m feeling lost and I’m put on the spot. I’m not saying that you have to cover up every emotion with a smile, but it does help to be able to ride over some difficult news with a smile while your brain is still processing them.

Which brings us to the 3^rd thing I’ve learned. So what if you were not where you were supposed to be and you end up doing a solo piece involuntarily? Or you have a wardrobe malfunction that embarrasses you so much you think it is the end of the world? Well, it’s not. I once ripped my pants while doing a split during a performance. Crack! just when the music paused! My fellow dancers heard it and were fighting a fit of laughter. I was livid and I thought of rushing off the stage in shame. But true to my training and experience, I kept smiling and finished the dance while trying not to lift my leg too high. It would have been easy for me to hash things over and over and to be afraid of ever donning that costume again. But the following week, the audience had changed, my fellow dancers forgot about it and nobody who cared for me cared that I made a fool of myself. The lesson: the dance will end, the audience will change and you will get another chance to prove yourself as a dancer.

You know the saying ‘dance like no one is watching’? Well that is complete absurdity! Dance like you know SOMEONE is watching. Because in the performance called Life, someone IS always watching. Do not worry though, you now have 3 coping mechanisms to help you: 1, if you do not know where to go, move with the flow until you figure out the next step. 2, smile while dancing it makes all the difference especially if you make a mistake and 3, even if something goes wrong, tomorrow is another day,  another audience. If none of this works for you, just remember that no performance is ever complete without a beautiful reverence at the end. That is your opportunity to dazzle and leave a lasting impression with your audience. 

*make a little reverence*

The Icebreaker

On January 31st, I delivered my first speech for Toastmasters.
In TM lingo, that's CC-1. CC is not for my initials, but for Competent Communicator. There are 10 projects for the Competent Communicator path and I hope to do all 10 projects within the year.

CC-1 was fairly easy to write, you are supposed to write about yourself, give your club a way to know you better. The goal of the project is to get you up there in front of everybody for 4-6 minutes. I believe that I talked for a little bit more than 5 minutes. I learned it by heart, but I fumbled once and I forgot where I was in the speech once, so I had to go back to my notes. I had no qualms about my writing ability. I did have my doubts about the delivery.

The feedback I have received was good. Everybody thought it was well organized and I delivered it well, with voice inflections, peppered with laughter, smiles and eye contact. As I was wrapping up the speech though, I could feel my body relax and my voice changed, gained more confidence. As I go along my Toastmasters path, I hope to get to that level of confidence at the start of my speeches, not as I am wrapping up, with end in sight!

Below is my speech:

THE UNIQUENESS OF 1.3 MILLION

"If I were to ask someone on the street to guess where I come from, they would probably be wrong.
If I were to give that person a second chance, they would probably still be wrong. 

Toastmasters and guests, je m'appelle Carine and I am African.
 
I was born and raised in Mauritius, a tiny island off the coast of Africa.
When I say tiny, I really mean tiny!
In my early years here, when asked by people where my accent is from, and I would get a blank stare in return, I would draw an imaginary world map.

*Draw in the air* 
Africa. Australia.
And someone in between these 2 continents, in the middle of the Indian Ocean, there should be a dot marking Mauritius. That is, if you are lucky. 
Some maps do not even have the dot representing Mauritius.
Some have the dot, but not the label, so people could mistake it for a fleck of dust.

The Mauritian population is made up of mostly Indian, then African, European and Chinese descendants. The culture is diverse, as everybody has brought a little bit of their countries with them.
The history is rife with battles between the French and the British, fierce enemies at the time, both trying to conquer as much land as possible.

Though the Brits were the last to own the country before it was declared independent in 1968, the French colonists were more successful in establishing the language, building roads and naming places. So when they left, tail between legs, the Brits imposed English as the official language and implemented their educational system. But they were not able to kick the french out of the people.
This is how we became bilingual, English and French and to add to the insult, we made up our own third language, creole, closer to french than english.

The French and the British both brought African slaves with them to be domestics and work in the sugar cane plantations. When slavery was abolished, the African slaves were freed and the British brought in indentured labourers from India and encouraged traders from China to come and settle in Mauritius with promises of land and wealth.

My ancestors were among those brave ones taking a leap of faith, leaving China for a faraway island.
In essence, that is what I did some 13 years ago when I came to Canada. Except I didn't come on a ship, but on a British Airways flight. And I didn't come with promises of wealth and land, but with the promise of an education.

The dilemma that I often face today is when I have to fill out my ethnicity on forms.
How do you categorize a french speaking African of Chinese descent?

Of course, physically, I should check the box for Chinese.
But I do not speak the language, nor do I understand the intricacies of the culture!
Should I check the box for French? 
But I have never lived in France, nor do I have the innate taste for wine or cheese.
Should I check the box for African?
Look at me! I do not look remotely like a typical African.
So more often than not, I would end up choose 'Other' or 'Prefer not to answer'.

Please do not pity me though, it is not as if I am ashamed of where I come from.
Mark Twain and Charles Darwin both referred to Mauritius as heaven on earth.
In fact, Mark Twain said 'God created Mauritius first and then paradise was copied after it'. 

So when I'm asked where I come from, although I may not say that I come from the great White North, it is more interesting for me to say 'from paradise on earth'. 
After all, there are only 1.3 million of us who may say that in the world."

Glossophobia

Glossophobia or speech anxiety is the fear of public speaking or speaking in general.^[1] The word glossophobia comes from the Greek γλῶσσα glōssa, meaning tongue, and φόβος phobos, fear or dread. Many people only have this fear, while others may also have social phobia or social anxiety disorder.

The [physical] symptoms include acute hearing, increased heart rate, increased blood pressure, dilated pupils, increased perspiration, increased oxygen intake, stiffening of neck/upper back muscles, and dry mouth.

The verbal symptoms include, but are not limited to a tense voice, a quivering voice, and vocalized pauses—which tend to comfort anxious speakers. 

By this definition, I am glossophic to some degree. You can read the full definition on wikipedia.

I am certainly prone to stomachache or maybe they are butterflies in my stomach, experience increased blood pressure and increased perspiration and get overly jittery before I have to make a presentation in front of a crowd. THREE is a crowd.

Quite frankly, I do not know what triggers this anxiety. Yes, I am an 'ESL' but there are others out there whose english is worst than me. I don't see them almost keeling over from...glossophobia. I believe it might be the fear of appearing as a complete idiot to my audience, but then again, I become the goofiest person around in a non formal (read, non public speaking or attention focusing) setting. 

Many people report stress-induced speech disorders which are only present during public speech. Some glossophobics have been able to dance, perform in public, or even to speak (such as in a play) or sing if they cannot see the audience, or if they feel that they are presenting a character or stage persona rather than themselves. Being able to blend in a group (as in a choir or band) can also alleviate some anxiety caused by glossophobia.
Estimated 75% of all people experience some degree of anxiety/nervousness when public speaking.

That too is true. I have grown up performing on a weekly basis in front of an audience of strangers, and yes I get stage fright, but not even close to what I feel before I have to make a speech/presentation. People do not believe that it affects me that way, I am after all a seemingly normal person, with hyperactivity tendencies (according to my friends) and an outgoing demeanor. Just do not ask me to speak in a setting where people are all looking at me. And trust me, I have tried to picture all of them naked and it was not pretty in my head!

I accompanied a friend to his Toastmasters meeting last week, with the understanding that I would not have to speak. They asked the guests to introduce themselves at the beginning, which was expected and I kept it short, my name, who brought me here, and I just wanted to check it out, and then they went on with their normal agenda. At the end of the meeting though, they asked for guests' feedback, which came quite surprisingly to me. First, panic. Second, listen to what the other 2 guests are saying. Third, panic, it's my turn. What went through my mind then was the fact that the other 2 guests are well-spoken and articulate and I tried not to look like a complete idiot for my friend's sake. My first instinct was to refuse to talk, but he was looking at me directly with an arched eyebrow and I couldn't let him down! I am not sure if speaking was the right choice. I might have let him down by uttering whatever came through my mind, which was 'This was interesting...I did not think it would be so formal...I shall think about joining this meeting'.

Damn, I should be going to Toastmasters. But do I really want to put myself through that kind of torture every week? There's no doubt that it will benefit me, it is just up to me, to consciously decide to join a Toastmasters club and clench my teeth through all the 10 necessary speeches on the way to master the skill of public speaking. Come on now, where is my bravery when I need it?