Well, well, well, it seems as though I didn’t over prepare!

I think I actually spoke for about an hour.

I’m embarrassed really! I felt so totally surprised when after forty minutes I was allowed to go on, and on, and on.

My hubby would have said I was babbling, but then he’s got extremely high standards when it comes to speech writing.

He’s not used to the lackadaisical methods of children’s writers when they speak.

But still, I have higher standards! And it really wasn’t my best moment!

It was a frigid night! Maybe that’s why the turnout was low. Or maybe they didn’t come because I was speaking! Only about 45 – 50 people, but then I’m notorious at misestimating crowds!

The fact that there were more than five was encouraging enough to me!

My topic: Writing from another cultural perspective.

I was so busy the last few days that I really didn’t have time to produce something that fresh for the night!

This was my schedule yesterday and today:

7:30 am Leave for school presentations

Arrive 8:50  at a school across town (after battling Toronto traffic congestion!)

3- one hour presentations to about 400 students in grades 6, 7 and 8.

Leave 2:15. Arrive home at 3 pm.

Leave at 4 pm. Get on the subway, spend an hour going downtown for the Canscaip dinner. Arrive way too early.

Dinner: 6 – 7:30 (the meeting was supposed to start at 7:30)

Spoke from about 8 – 9, but from the vibe in the room, I could have gone on another half hour and the audience would have been happy!

Didn’t leave the meeting till 10 pm, kept getting waylaid by well-wishers and people who wanted to commend me on my speech.

Arrived home 11:10 pm.

Left this morning at 7:30 to go back to that same middle school and do three more presentations to the rest of the students! Arrived home by 3 pm, absolutely wiped!

And I found an email from a very well respected author who hadn’t been able to get close enough to me (because of the crowd) saying that mine was the best presentation they’d had there in a long time!

I don’t know. I don’t get it.

I was exhausted after three presentations and such a long day yesterday! No wonder I didn’t speak as well as I normally do.

In fact, I ended up saying about the last third of my speech in Denmark. I thought what the heck! It deals with the subject, so why not?

And when I was done saying all the things I’d prepared, I went ahead and told them my Big Red Lollipop story, because they seemed to be waiting for more!

They loved it!

But I was so brain-drained I forgot to tell the folks there that if they want to read the entire speech they should check it out on my website, under the articles section here: http://www.rukhsanakhan.com/articles/Freedom%20of%20Speech.pdf

One of the highlights of the night was meeting an old friend! We’d taken a writing course together (and we both left–actually she left, I was asked to leave!).

Turns out she’s been following my blog and even took some inspiration from it!

All in all it was a very nice evening! And if they all loved my presentation, as it seems they did, then I should just shut up and accept that!

But I can’t seem to help kicking myself for not doing a better, proper job!