In Your Face, Rockstar!

As all of you readers may know I'm attending college again (new reader? please check out the blog entry "Third-First Day of School"). We were given the task of impromptu speeches to do in my oral comm class, as an exercise of readiness and swiftness. As I'm sure you've guessed I go up in front of the class, dazzled everyone away with my charm and poise and return to my seat to the applause I well deserved. I owned that speech--and funny thing is, I honestly don't remember anything I said, due to my nerves. Good for me, Steven Shyne.

Other students face the gambit but their nerves get the best of them and they suffer through the whole speech. Well, another student approaches the front of the class and gave his impromptu speech on "if he were a rockstar" or something nutty like that. This kid is still in high school and attending City College at night to get a jump start on his college career. Anyway, he blows my speech out of the water and receives more whistling and clapping than I thought possible from a improv college speech class audience. He now is forever known as "Rockstar" due to the nature of his speech.

The next day he walks into class and everyone student, as well as the instructor, greets him as "Rockstar." He is smug with victory and basks in his impromptu glory. However I have an ace up my sleeve--it's called "current event speech." The assignment we previously had was an impromptu speech--a spilling of words off the cuff. Today we are exercising a more decided and planned approach to public speaking. I've been practicing and know my topic like the back of my hand. I waltz to the front of the room, deliver a mind-blowing account on China's inevitable acquisition of power and (after q+a) return to my chair satisfied and victorious. Rockstar--I'm sure--is shaking in his dirty little shoes at this point. Defeat is racing towards him like an impregnable, bony greyhound rounding the corner of it's last lap. He readies himself, presents his current event and to my delicious prediction, fails to meet such standards as the ones I set. He had some HPV bleeding-heart story and was unable to capture it's severity. He returns to his chair sulkily and to a splatter of hand clapping--I dare not even say applause.

He is completely unaware of our silent quarrel; he knows nothing of my wishes toward his constant defeat. You got me the first time around, but all I can say now is "in your face, Rockstar!"