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Just me and five hundred little boys

I spoke at Chapel today. Just me, a stage and five hundred blank faces staring at me, daring me not to put them to sleep. I decided to focus my chapel talk on faith and God. This may seem obvious, but I have yet to hear a chapel talk about God.

I made the agreement to speak at Chapel some time ago. I drafted out my speech, made sure t was appropriate, then quickly forgot about it. It was until I was walking to work this moment when I suddenly remembered my speech was today. My heart skipped two beats. Luckily, I had left a copy of my speech on my desk at work. I had a class first period, then chapel right after. I never got a chance to read it through or practice saying it out loud.

The story I told is one from my heart, so I was able to pull it off fairly well. I had my draft to guide me and offer story details. I sat up on the stage with my boss Okamoto beside me. I sat calmly through the hymn and the verse reading, then approached the podium with a twinge of poise. I may not have been as emotive as I wanted to be, but spoke smoothly and articulated well. Not that my articulation maters much as the kids don’t understand English. Okamoto was there to translate my sentences into Japanese and wave his hands around a lot.

Many of the teachers (that speak English) came up to me afterwards and told me I did a very good job. Dan told me that Okamoto only changed one part to soften it even more than I did, but otherwise was fairly honest in his translation. I’m actually looking forward to the next time I get to speak at Chapel.

posted by Scribbler @ Tuesday, November 23, 2004