Public Speaking at MSPH

I think I was able to prove at the Stanford wrapup of Microsoft Puzzle Hunt 12 that I am not well-suited for orating to the general population. The best my wife — who had watched the webcast — could say was, "Well, I'll give you points for conciseness."

My conscious mind doesn't have a problem getting up in front of people and talking. But for some reason, a ton of adrenaline gets dumped into my system regardless, clouds my thoughts and I lose whatever tenuous grip I have on motor control. Usually, the "mind over matter" approach works for me; I use it to overcome motion sickness for example. But it hasn't worked for public speaking. Practice practice practice is the other method I've tried, but in taking speech classes I seem to have gotten worse, instead of better.

Amusingly enough, the worst public speaking performance I ever gave was when I only had two words to utter...