.: First Time Experience Being First Place

I joined Toastmasters since 2008 but never made my way to International Speech Contest until three days ago (Feb 07, 2014). I never expected winning the first place, I dared myself in the competition just to measure how much I have progressed in speaking before large audience. I also wanted to see my club fellows' speech performances.

It was not easy for me to compose speech topic, had several trials and errors. I got contest fever, the butterfly effect in my stomach that made want to give up. I was about to call contest chairman to cancel my participation, but then I reassured myself, I had nothing to lose, why not giving a try?

Once I got a very good topic, but then I changed my mind just a day before contest. I thought it's better to deliver a personal story to appeal more of audience attention rather than a serious lecturing one. The composing was done in one night, followed by occasional practices in the office. I was worried about exceeding the 5-7 minutes allotted time, so I put high concerns at the stopwatch.

On contest day, I was excited to see my friends's speech but apparently they cancelled theirs in last minute!! There were 5 cancellations, leaving only me and Rendra competing one another. We shook hands, wishing each other's good luck.

I got the first turn to speech, I had no worries, all I wanted to was just finishing this speech and going home! The audience seemed quite entertained with my speech (I hope so), they laughed at my jokes! I know I should have put more pauses to let audience finish their laughs but I saw the time light device was more terrifying, I finished my speech few seconds right after the red light was turned on.

After speeches done, all contestants were invited to the stage for interview. We had the craziest interview ever!! Arief, the contest chairman, dropped intriguing questions to contestants, we laughed so hard hearing the jokes thrown in the air. The winner announcement was eventually started. Since Sandoz TMC only had 2 participantsm, me and Rendra can proceed to area level contest. I'm relieved to know that I'm not alone going to area contest, yet so excited to see more great speeches from other clubs' fellows.