On Speaking and Spontaneity

Early yesterday morning, the first day of December, school greeted me with the same stale air one cannot associate with the much-anticipated time of the year that is Christmas (or Christmas break, to be precise). Since the professors in the first two major subjects weren’t in, the girls decided that we go to SM Centerpoint for a stroll.

At Booksale, I got another Scarpetta novel, chanced upon a copy of Lost Souls by Poppy Z. Brite which Irene bought, while the other three drooled over the eleventh book in Darren Shan’s Cirque du Freak series. We thought of seeing a movie, but being the GCs that we are, opted to go back to school for a long overdue first quiz in Psychology…only to flunk it.

Then came Miss K. bringing yet another round of shudders within me as she announced that we’ll have a 2-minute speaking activity again: this time, a prepared speech on a topic that was selected at random in a pouch filled with folded pieces of paper submitted by everybody in the class. Some of the girls have picked out such vague topics as Life, Death, AIDS. The inconsiderate ones didn’t know how to be a bit more specific. And the others picked out subjects as absurd (The only appropriate adjective I can think of, because the initial reaction this topic provokes is a HUH?) as Pasig River Rehabilitation, and as politically-oriented as 2010 Presidentiables and Automated Elections. I am contented with mine, however. The question was written in slender letters that would pass for legibility: Are you in favor of those television programs making Pinoy versions of such Korea Novela [sic] instead of producing unique Pinoy stories? There, I got the thought loud and clear, and if I’ll be just as confident as I am when I spell words out in a spelling bee, I know I can deliver my speech well on Friday. Who’s the patron saint of public speakers, anyway? May whoever-that-is bless my disorganized mind.

Postscript: The topic I submitted was Writing vs Speaking. I saw how the lucky one who picked that winced and I almost told her with arms akimbo: Hey, that’s already a bargain.