Debut

I always thought I was more of a writer than a speaker. I have a way with words written, but less so when they are spoken. Until yesterday that is.

To be honest I’ve always dreaded public appearances. A crowd of people, watching, staring, wondering and waiting for what wisdom you have to dispense. I always thought many others have a flair for public speaking, but I just don’t, and never will possess that ease, that confidence. They can just go up there on stage, and talk persuasively and eloquently and go off stage in a round of applause. But not I. Until yesterday.

As part of the symposium I have been invited to attend in Strasbourg, I was asked to present a paper that I wrote together with a friend of mine. The thesis is simple really, but nonetheless a fascinating account (or at least attempt at that) of the legal and political implications of a new intergovernmental space organisation that China has been so eager to establish. We have been working on the paper for months, and finally yesterday was the opportunity to present it.

Of the three days and six panels in total, it was my luck to be assigned to the last session on the last day as the very last speaker. I debated whether it was because my topic was too uninteresting… but then some others told me it was a ‘golden seat’. That didn’t dispel the anxieties.

The first day of the symposium went by smoothly. Now and then, when listening to a topic that was less interesting, I would go over my notes and power point, and go through the presentation inside my head. But as the day, hours and minutes before being called up to perform, I got more and more nervous. Worse was I had to do it all alone.

I kept on drinking water, clearing my throat, closing my eyes and taking deep breaths to calm myself. The presentations before me seemed like a haze, and in my mind I just imagined the end of it all, when it is all over, when I can either smile at myself or feel like a failure. I didn’t do any practice dry-runs, and I even refused to do a mock presentation to a friend, because as I said “I get nervous in front of people I know”. Strange, but that’s true.

Then I was called on stage. I thanked the chair of the panel for the introduction, and I began with a joke… or at least an attempt at one, saying what a great honour it was to be the very last speaker, and to be standing between the audience and their long-awaited weekend. And I began.

Somehow, gone were the fears of me stuttering, stumbling, tripping and falling over words and phrases. Instead, there was a surprising sense of calm, clarity of thought and mind, and somehow the words and ideas, sentences and opinions flowed out of my mouth, almost as fluently as they would out of the tips of my fingers. My voice was clear through the mike, and the audience listened attentively, some even nodding in agreement at times. Slide after slide, the presentation went according to what had been planned inside my head. The keywords and short trigger sentences I had in front of me kept the momentum going. I looked around the room, at times ‘seeing through’ the people sitting there (a technique I learnt in high school drama class), and I felt no anxiety. I was on a roll!

And when it was all over, the audience applauded. A great encouragement, an exhalation of relief. I smiled, and looked around the room. The crowd seemed satisfied enough. What came almost soon after were the questions. Half a dozen hands went up around the room, much more than was the case with other presentations. Perhaps a good sign, that people were interested… or perhaps a bad sign, that I didn’t get the message across clear enough.

And it was the former. People were genuinely intrigued at my points and speculations, and wanted to know more about the organization’s aims, its potentials and pitfalls. I answered each question gracefully, smiling as I replied them, full of confidence, full of pride, feeling in those fleeting moments like I was the one with the expert knowledge and understanding, and that people were really interested in what I had to say. As a lawyer in training I attach great importance to the idea, to the ideal of the law, I said. Yet politics and power often may, and often does, prevail over the niceties of the law. What looks beautiful on paper may be far and different from what is realized in practice, as with anything in the world. The people with questions nodded as I gently carried my message and answers across. They were satisfied and convinced.

Enthused, I left the stage, delighted and relieved, in yet another round of applause. I had done it. Faced my worst fears of embarrassment, faced my (often unjustified) lack of confidence in my own abilities and intellect, and showed to people, and most of all to myself, what I can do.

And all this just before 25.