From Written Words to Spoken Meaning
By Jonathan Lam on 03/02/16
Tagged: the-homework-life the-homework-life-thought
What do I believe? Check it out at "As of February 2016", a poem based off of "As of May 2002" by Del Shortliffe1.
And another piece I have recently written, this time in response to Catcher in the Rye, is "Little Chained Bird", a little vignette that was based off the idea of a single, tiny slice of life.
As I mentioned briefly in the last post, we are going towards a "Sophomore Speakout" in English class; a single, opinionated, powerful speech. To me, the it sounds daunting from the get-go — me, notorious for my poor presentational rhetorical abilities, up for a speech to the class? And on such an open-ended prompt? What am I to do?
Our teacher was quite supportive, giving us a month's advance to think about it and plenty of time to draft, as well as some organizers to begin brainstorming ideas. But it doesn't allay my initial fears of a "speech."
But it's necessary first to tackle the question: what's in a speech? Unfortunately, my mental connotation is too set on Obama standing up on stage, giving an amazingly inspirational oration that moves the hearts of millions across the nations. Or the TED talks that throw your brain for a loop. They declaim their thoughts so artfully, and they receive clamorous acclamation from the audience.
But I am that guy who freezes up on stage. I am that guy who leaves the flash cards at home, and my memory along with it. I am that guy who stutters, mutters, and trails off in an incomprehensible train of mumbo-jumbo. It's unfortunate. It really is.
Of course, this all relates back to this blog. Hey, guess what it's for? It's to improve my writing skills! Whoa! Perfect! But … how?
It's not so easy just to "improve your writing." I've learned from experience that improvement comes only when learning from your mistakes and not simply practice alone. And, the more I think about it, the more I realize that, in short1 is that I cannot easily follow a train of thought when I speak. My memory capacity seems to be limited only to one major idea, one that I so carefully plot out in my mind before I soon realize that everything else is gone. Unfortunately, I believe this is a relic of my high-school studying habits: I can so effectively cram study material into my head the period before the test, but come the day of the final and it is lost, brushed away by even a gentle wind.
And so my solution will be to be more innovative, more creative when I fathom new ideas. I have to be able to orally continue a complex situation in my head, either by memorization or on-the-spot. And I'll practice with these little opinion posts I'm writing right now. If I can just recite them or write them quicker and more fluidly, building off ideas and creatively branching off, I'll be an orator an order of magnitude better than I was before. Thanks for the thinking-on-paper, TheHomeworkLife!
1: I can't seem to find it on Google, so if you read my rendition of the poem, you'll get a good idea.
2: because it is quickly getting late and I still have to study for numerous examinations