So what really happened on that fateful day of 17th September 2010?
Well, I gave a speech, talk, seminar (or whatever you want to call it) to UST students!
I decided that the 9 Ways to Screw Up Your Speech list is the best way to record that experience. Instead of a blow-by-blow account of everything that’s happened there, I wrote the points I need to remember the next time I’m offered the chance to give a talk.
It should go without saying that the list should be taken in a reverse psychology kind of way. I got this idea from the demon Screwtape whose cunning I admired but whose morality I despised. 
Obviously, there are a lot more things a good speaker should do and not do. But the ones I listed are personally relevant to how I carried out my speech in UST. In simpler terms, I personally made all those boo-boos. 
Books on Public Speaking
I even bought a book just to prepare for the talk. But without enough time, unfortunately I didn’t get to internalize everything the book taught me.
Public Speaking and Personality Development
by Wilma Cruz-Tapalla and Valerie Cruz Tapalla
You can read my book review for this at The Bookish Pinoy.
Another book I owe my thanks to is this fun and entertaining book called Confessions of a Public Speaker written by Scott Berkun. I didn’t finish reading this in time for my speech but the few pages I read from it were invaluable.
While Tapalla’s book was more textbook-like, Berkun’s Confessions book reads like a conversation with a friend who has been doing public speaking his whole life. It’s a really good book and I would have bought it in hardcover if it wasn’t so expensively sold here. They have it in Fully Booked for 1550 pesos. I’ll definitely keep a lookout for this book in case it appears on a bargain table one of these days.
Acknowledgements
Now, for the thank-yous. First of course is Daryl. Without his crazy idea of inviting me there, I wouldn’t be learning the stuff I wrote on that list.
To Daryl: Next time, please don’t leave your guest speaker alone to fend for himself. I looked like a loser waiting for his turn in that corner. But thanks Apple fanboy.
Next, thank you to the UST students who endured starvation just to listen to my talk. Haha! I don’t know if anyone even noted the URL of this blog when I showed it in the presentation but I hope they learned something from my 60 minutes of babbling.
Here’s the presentation again… unedited with all the typos.
And sorry for not explaining what a CMS is.
Next in the gratitude list is my family. (This is beginning to sound like a speech in itself!) My mother and sister even dropped me off at UST to keep me company while I vent out my fears and the insanity of this whole idea.
And last but not the least, thanks to Him. Without Him, I wouldn’t have had the strength to take on this challenge. The ordinary wimpy me would have said no without a second thought. But He reminded me of my promise for this year. I have been quite neglectful of my resolutions and this was my way of making up for it. After a few minutes chatting with Daryl, I immediately said YES. Talk about reckless bravery!
Although I made a lot of mistakes on this first talk, overall I consider it a success. If you had told me last year that I’ll be doing this, I would have told you that no alternate reality in all sets of quantum universes would ever have this kind of event. But look, in this dimension I actually did give a talk!
So it’s easy to see that no matter how much man wants to control his future, even just one year on, it’s nothing short of impossible. But I have conquered the seemingly impossible by winning this challenge and I sure am ready for more!
Filipino Catholic · Hobby Blogger · 
Chords of Strength and Peanut Butter
I didn’t really have any plans to write here today but there have been a lot of signs lately telling me that I should do this so here I am to talk about Chords of Strength and Peanut Butter!
Chords of Strength is a book by American Idol runner-up David Archuleta where he shares his life experiences from childhood all the way to stardom. He tells in his book how music has shaped his life, how his faith in God has taken him to where he is now and how it continues to help him get through each day.
You see, my David Archuleta experience began with an answered prayer so I have no doubt in my mind that meeting him in person was God’s will and reading what he says in his biography only confirmed that.
God really does know when to give His divine helping hand. You only have to trust in Him much like what David did when he was faced with the dilemma of whether to audition for American Idol (a huge risk!) or continue with his normal teenage high school boy life (most people in the history of the world go down this safe path). And we all know where his praying for the Holy Spirit’s guidance has gotten him into.
Being a book lover, I was naturally curious about what this kid wrote in his book. I’ve been reading it on my Kindle for a week now. Not the hardcover copy which is what my sister reads. Reading on the Kindle is strangely liberating.
Anyway, with still three chapters left to read, I can already safely say that “Chords of Strength” is in my top 2 fave books for this year. It might be even a tie between this and A Sense Of The World.
To say that David has inspired me would be a huge understatement of the actual effect his life story had in me. I am extremely grateful to God for giving me the chance to know more about such a good person and role model like David. It’s really serendipitous that the values David upholds closely matches the ones I’ve been trying to live by this year.
Meeting strangers or facing new people has always been one of my biggest fears. One of my monthly challenges this year attempted to address that problem. And so in keeping with the promise to do something challenging every month, I met with my Plurk friends again. We watched Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1 at Trinoma C4 (my 2nd time and it’s still good!) and had dinner at Peanut Butter Company at SM City North Edsa. I had Roast Beef Sandwich and potatoes with Peanut Cucumber Mayo.
I never thought peanut butter could taste good with these stuff but they did! Mati and Jerwin are a sort of food adventurers you see.
Surprisingly, Mati knew about my coming special day so he even prepared a gift. Wow! At this age, I rarely ever get gifts so this was a very welcome surprise. He’s aware of my recent love for Christian music so he gave me a CD of Steve Green.
And as David did, I accepted it with my whole heart treating it as a sign that I should continue working on my relationship with God.
I have touched on David’s book in this article but don’t think this is already my review for it. I’ve learned a lot from this kid so it deserves to get a more comprehensive review. I’ll probably publish it on The Bookish Pinoy this weekend.
And around this time, I should have already posted my special birthday plans this year but they didn’t come into fruition due to several circumstances that I hadn’t anticipated. Normally I would have felt bad about this but David again was there to remind me of something I already knew but always keep on forgetting.
I tend to overplan things a lot and it almost always doesn’t end up the way I wanted it to, resulting in massive emotional trauma for having been disappointed. So does this mean I have nothing special coming up for Thursday? Well, I guess we’ll just have to see what the Spirit will inspire me to do. And no, it’s not gonna involve peanut butters.
Read reviews of “Chords of Strength” by David Archuleta at Amazon.com