As it turned out, our reluctant hero slowly became a confident hero. No longer did the streams of time pass through his fingers – if you will recall, while waiting his turn the time dragged on, 5 seconds felt like 5 minutes, and when Time Bender was speaking at the podium, 5 minutes felt like 5 seconds!

It would appear that Time Bender has finally gotten a grasp on the streams of time. Time no longer flows out of control, but is normal and consistent. There is one quality our hero has discovered about himself. It would appear that he has a knack for shifting his body weight – left, then right, then left again, but this only happens at the beginning of his presentations. What is even more interesting is that as the presentations go on, our hero shifts his weight less, becomes more confident and his delivery is more natural and organic.

I believe that the single most important characteristic of public speaking is the planning and preparation stage. If a speaker has researched and learned his material well enough, and has prepared the delivery, then everything else will fall in place – he or she will almost always exude confidence in the material they’re delivering. What has surprised me the most is in fact the time spent preparing -and it has paid dividends. In the past I always felt my presentations were sloppy at best, but with more thorough preparation and rehearsals I’ve noticed a greater polish.  As far as using public speaking in the future, I’ve come to learn that several employees in my field of interest (foreign policy/international affairs) value written communication as much as oral communication. Oral communication courses were even recommended by foreignpolicy.com in a latest article regarding graduate programs in International Affairs. So there is no doubt that I will continue to polish this skill, and will probably include it in my resume.