Something scary for March

It's a new month and time for a new scary goal.

February's scary goal was taking a non-credit "Effective Presentations" class. I finished that class Feb. 20 with a 14-minute talk and Power Point presentation on "Understanding the Romance Novel." Hey, why not use it as an opportunity to practice talking about something I hope to speak more about in the future?

I have to say that the presentation went very well. Good comments from the instructor included: great intro, attractive Power Point, quotes, pictures of actual books, nice graph and presentation of data, good Q&A session, good eye contact and props, loud and slow.

Constructive comments included: plant my feet and don't cross them, breathe (she joked that she started looking for a brown paper bag for me), nervous at beginning, a few "ums" and I needed an ending summary slide.

My impression from taking the class is that I can write decent presentations that hold people's interest, I just need to practice and concentrate on channeling my nervous energy.

This leads me to my March scary goal idea: taking a five-week non-credit "Acting for Non-Actors" class.

The catalog describes it like this: "Boost your self-confidence in social situations by learning the skills that actors use. Through a variety of acting exercises and improvisations, develop expressiveness, concentration and powers of observation."

I haven't registered yet. Stay tuned for updates.