If there is one thing I hate, it's speaking in front of people. I. Can't. Do. It. And I don't think I ever will be. My hands start to shake, my face gets red, I stutter and can't get my words out right so I look like a downright retard. Sometimes, I'll even get to the point where I cry--and I don't particularly like doing that in front of people either.

It's really embarrassing and it's something that really annoys and bothers me. But it's not like I can really do anything to fix it. Sure, I can practice talking in front of people and sure, I will have to do many different times in my life, but I'll honestly tell you I don't believe I'll get much better.

What really puts me over the edge is if what I'm talking about is personal. For example, my youth group at my church is going on a mission trip to New York to do construction work and to be eligible to go, you have to meet certain requirements. One of them is you have to give your testimony. Not a big deal right?

But if you're put on the spot, in front of thirty people, and you're told that you have to talk about something very personal, that is something completely different. So being the lucky duck I am, I had to off the top of my head come up with my testimony in front of 30 people, and I believe I already mentioned I don't talk in front of people very well. To simply put it, it didn't go well.

To top it all off though, one of our youth leaders wanted us to critique other people when they're finished. I'm sorry, but that is just ridiculous. You don't criticize and critique somebody's testimony. It's like saying, "Your life story sucks. Get a new one." I don't think so. That is just something that you do not critique. Thankfully though, nobody critiqued mine, (I'm sure the main reason is they all took pity on little ol' me).  All in all, it was not a fun night, and I didn't even stay for church. One of my friends in college gave me a ride home.

I am so mad/frustrated/humiliated/disappointed/ticked off at the moment. I don’t know how else to say it.

I was a part of an ensemble for a contest and we performed today. We sang a relativley easy song, there wasn’t any impossible high notes to hit or rediculous words we had to memorize. It was only about 3 minutes long, that’s not to much to ask for is it? Apparently so.

Even though we were supposed to have six people in our group, we had five–two 1st sopranos, two 2nd sopranos, and one alto. Our alto didn’t even show up. We had to perform without her, which was horrible because our alto holds our 2nds together. There is a point in the song that the 2nds and the alto have a solo, per say, they didn’t even sing it because they didn’t know the words, so it was silent. Silent.

Our music director didn’t measure our music for the judge, so points were deducted from that, 3 of the girls sang the wrong verse at the wrong time, our alto wasn’t there, and we only performed one song because our choir director thought we weren’t ready for the other one–so we were disqualified. And it just went worse from there.

My friend called me and told me that our group got a 4, and the lowest you can get is a 5. And it sucks that a few people would just ruin the whole thing for the whole group. When I do something, I want to do it well. I don’t want to look like stupid in front of an audience.

When you take a part in a contest, or anything of this kind of sorts, you don’t just go in and expect everyone else to do all the work for you. You can’t just think along the lines of, “Oh, if I forget the words, no big deal, so-and-so will remember them!” Things like that just really tick me off.

Needless, to say, I am definatley picking a better group next year who will actually give there best for this and won’t set it at the bottom of their priority list.