***My first public speaking thing/university huurahss!!!*** ..

***My first public speaking thing/university huurahss!!!*** SO. yesterday i got chosen to represent my department at the university open day. i had to give a talk to prospective students. i’ve attached the email below, where my name was recommended. so that explains the silence yesterday, which is usually my horny chatting day. after spending the whole day talking to students and encouraging them to apply to my university and my department, i was exhausted. and yes Ben was the one who emailed me,(more on that later, if you’d like to hear it lol) but My academic advisor is the person who recommended me. i wore a mini skirt and a turtleneck, and i was the only one who turned up. everyone else who was asked ( i think there were 3 of us who were chosen) didn’t show up. The panic that ran through me, when I realised I would be presenting alone turned me into what can only me describe as pool of nerves. when i arrived, the department was so happy to see me. they all sighed in relief, and my academic advisor blew me kisses as I walked in. she is the only one who knows about my personal life, and the struggles i’ve gone through to get to university. she’s iranian, so she gets the family and struggles for independence (having gone through something similar). i was so so touched to be chosen, i’ve never been chosen to do anything, ever. i’ve never been asked to represent anything. and I don’t blame anyone for never picking me, I was too strung out after surviving home that I never had energy to excel or do anything well. what might shock you, is that i suck at public speaking. I’m so so good in a social setting, bar, club, etc, or even one on one. I take pride in the fact that when the lights are low, the investment banker boys flock to me, and tell me their secrets, telling me they’ve never opened up like this before, that I’m an angel whose come into their life to hear them. Yes one investment banker at Goldman told me this at a club once lol. It’s not hard to listen to people who just want to be heard. My second career after being a filthy porn star, is definitely a therapist. My fear of public speaking occurs mostly when i attend my tutorials (5-10 people), i always feel the urge to speak. since we’re all covid t33ns, everyone is very socially anxious, but the topics are always so engaging, that i find the words just blurt out of me, carrying me before I can stop them from leaving my lips and infecting the air. but my voice shakes every time, less so now that I kind of now everyone. But the fear of sounding stupid always flutters in the air when I speak. SO. You can imagine speaking in front of 50 people, i did not know filled me with anxiety.I don’t know why I am so nervous at public speaking, when others do it with such ease. Perhaps it’s a practice thing. I could feel my heart thudding so hard I thought that everyone around me would be able to hear it. but my department has been so good to me, and supported me through many academic appeals, and suggested therapies, that i really felt like i couldn’t let them down, especially since i was the only one who turned up. Also practicing public speaking should help with the nerves. when my name was called in front of parents and students it was my time to talk. Hearing my full name being presented was an unfamiliar feeling, but at the same time I felt like it had happened hundreds of times before, like a strange sense of deja-vu. ‘I’ve been here before’. I took pride in the fact my skirt was short, and my face was pretty. people like pretty people don’t they? Beauty inspires trust, I repeated to myself in my head as I crossed the stage. And so i spoke, i started my unprepared speech by blurting out’ i just want to preface that i’m very bad at public speaking but this department has been so good to me, that i feel like i have to say let that fear subside in the face of convincing you to apply to this university'. i spoke and rambled for a good 10 minutes, i was shaking, and it was obvious i was nervous, i trembled over my words, but my passion for the department showed. I tried not to make eye contact, and when I did, it came across a curly haired blonde boys who nodded with every word I said, his mother sitting next to him, frantically scribbling my words in a note pad. here I felt relief. i told them, that many members of the department have made time for me, even at 7pm over zoom if they can’t in person. and that this university has been a safe haven for me, that i thought i was stupid and dumb and would never amount to anything, especially attending and excelling at university, but after coming here i’ve been getting A’s and a+, in contrast to my first term where i was getting D’s. That my belief that I was capable came from writing a creative essay that was interlaced with heavy theory. That one essay got me a A+. And since then my confidence has sky rocketed. Promoting the belief that ‘hey you know what, I can do this!’. After my nervous speech the department's professors flocked to me saying that I did so well, that I was so clear and articulate, and honest. That I did a great job, and they were so grateful. I asked them whether they’d seen a different speech? I was so nervous! ‘Nonsense’ you did wonderfully! Thank you for showing up! We’re so glad we picked you! After i finished the talk, we had to go to the stands where students would come and talk to us individually and ask questions. all the students let their parents talk.a deep pang of nostalgia and sadness swept over me as I watched parents assume the role of spokespersons for their nervous children. memories of my solitary journey to university, months after fleeing home, resurfaced. I had been alone then, with no one to accompany me to open days. yet, those feelings dissipated as I realised that I now stood on the other side. Two years had passed, and I was here, a source of assurance and guidance for potential students One student was very keen, he asked the professor I was next too, how hard it is tot get in, and what to write for the personal statement, the potential student looked over at me for reassurance, and aske dthe professor signalling at me ‘ did she get thee grades?’ The professor looked over at me, and said ‘ oh Aaliyah, did very well, she got grades higher than needed to apply, I actually looked at her application’. This was news to me, when the student left, I asked where that was true, he said ‘yes! I remember suggesting you to the department, your story was very profound, and we all agreed that despite everything you’ve been through, it was impressive you managed to get the grades you did while living at home’. i glazed over, and gave myself an invisible pat on the shoulder. Maybe I wasn’t as stupid as I thought before. the professors i was ‘working with’ on the stand, were saying how weird it was that the potential students/t33ns were so nervous to talk to us. and let their parents speak. i reminded them that we're a covid generation. we missed out on a lot of essential socializing in our primal developmental years. one of the professors, whose module i did not take, ended up speaking to me as if i was not a student, it was so nice to be seen as an equal, and that i was not just some student. working at a stand for hours on end, doing gruelling work of answering the same questions over and over again, makes you open up, even if it’s to someone who is 20 years younger than you. i was bitching to him about a module i took last year, and how i hated the professor teaching, he ended up telling me ‘aaliyah promise you won’t tell anyone, but that professor is actually my brother in law’ so i got a lot of gossips that way. very juicy gossip because i was helping the university, i ended up going to the staff room, where it felt like i was an academic, and a peer of my professors, rather than a subordinate. i ate with them, and then one of the professors invited me to go to the pub with all of them. which was something. but i just can’t believe little old me, who was on the brink of failing, and never going to university. was one of the people chosen to be the face of the department. it feels so surreal.