Currently Reading Surprised by the Voice of God By Jack S. Deere see related

On March 18th at 3:30, I am scheduled to give a presentation on the biology behind the FAM birth control method I teach.

I’ve been working on it today, and thinking about the practice sessions I’ve committed to.

After my (reasonably successful) first speech Monday night, I reminded Marty (the scheduler) that he’d offered meeting time to practice my presentation before the event. He said he’d make me the only speaker this next week (the 6th), and encouraged me to practice it on him first (as the club “V.P. of Education” he volunteers extra time to help newbies in their early presentations).

It all seems really fast to me, but I figured I wouldn’t have any more time later, and the sooner I got this nailed-down the better I’d feel. So I set a time up with him on Saturday afternoon, so I can practice it before I speak to the larger group.

I told Jay all about it when I got home, thankful I’ve found a group as helpful and flexible as this. The next morning when I woke up, I rolled over to Jay and said, “I can’t do this. I can’t do this to them. I can’t inflict this embarrassing topic near strangers– half of them men.”

Jay tried to be all reassuring. “It’s not embarrassing,” he said. “It’s your area of expertise. It’d be like me giving a talk on circuits.” Circuits and cervical fluid are not the same thing, and I reminded him of that. One is definitely more personal than the other.

But he was being sweet and encouraging, and I guess that’s what I needed. Kept me from calling and canceling that same day, and now I’ll have to keep the commitments.

It’ll probably all be good for me. One of those, “If I can pull this off I can do anything,” life-events. I assume once I deliver this to a couple of ex-truckers and a retired navy guy, speaking before a group of women should be plain comfortable.