It turns out that the powerpoint presentation wasn't what I had to worry about.
On Monday, I learned that our test on Thursday included extemporaneous speaking, which I have dreaded for two years, since I learned that I was going to have to do it someday. We are given a six-picture story and three minutes to plan how to tell this story, then two minutes to speak. No, the dread didn't do anything for me. But it was actually far, far worse than I had expected. We speak into tape recorders, which I hate enough as it is, since I hate the sound of my recorded voice. But what I hadn't realized was that my teacher can hear every place I pause. On essays, I can spend as long as I want on one sentence, but I don't get that luxury with speaking. And the pauses made me pretty much panic. I completely forgot what I had planned to say, and I only got two or three (very badly-formed) sentences out. I kept stopping the tape, which I KNOW I'm not supposed to do, but I couldn't stand the long pauses. At least once, just stopping the tape took off enough pressure for me to remember, but it was still horrible.
I held back tears for the rest of the period. I kept hoping that my teacher would notice me wiping my eyes so I could explain a bit, but she didn't. I'm sure I didn't do as well on the written part of the test as I could have. I went to the next period, Physics, which is one of my favorite classes (my father is a physics professor and I know both my teacher's daughters), hoping that my friend in that class would notice that I was upset and comfort me or something. She did notice that I had tears in my eyes (thank God I'm not invisible - sometimes I think I am), so she asked what was wrong. But I had forgotten two things: I can't talk about something that's upsetting me without crying harder and I can't choose who sees me. So the entire class (which includes half my ten-person French class) got to see me cry about a French test. They were all very nice about it, though. One girl got me a piece of cake from somewhere to make me feel better. But I wish they could have all been selectively blind and deaf.
But in the end, my only trouble with the powerpoint was dread. I made it fine - it was actually a bit fun. I was prepared for disaster today, but after watching two other people present with their fair share of stumbles, I was actually confident enough to volunteer. (I didn't want to regain my fear over the weekend.) And I did well enough. I could have done better, but the only real mistake was going off my planned track and ending up reaching for a word I didn't know the translation for. My teacher offered me a word before it got too bad. It wasn't a very formal presentation, which helped.
My mom wants me to practice speaking about pictures at home without a recorder. As she pointed out, she can't understand enough French to know what I'm saying, so I wouldn't even have to worry about that. I guess that'll help me get more used to this. Also, the other girl at my table in Art is in French One, and I can talk to her and teach her a bit, which might help me get looser about speaking French.
)
