Two weeks ago, I attended Baruch Voices, where many students presented poems or personal stories. My Fro teacher, Marwa, was actually the MC of the event. It was a great experience for me, being that I was able to hear very creative and interesting poems and stories. My classmate, Kenny, performed at this event, giving a great, and graphic story about his first experience working at a hospital. His story went as follows: Kenny was told to take an older man in a wheelchair from one room in the hospital to another. Kenny began to stroll him down the hall, not knowing that a bump was approaching. He unintentionally went up the bump fairly quickly and the old man sitting in the chair popped out and back into the chair. When he landed back into the chair, his reaction was simply “ooft”. With hundreds of nerves running through his body, Kenny continued to stroll the old man. Minutes later, Kenny was holding onto the bars of the wheelchair, as the rubber suddenly fell off. Instead of disregarding the rubber, Kenny tried extremely hard to pop the rubber back into the bar of the wheelchair, forgetting that he was strolling the old man. Consequentially, Kenny strolled the old man straight into the wall. His first reaction, before making sure that the old man was notin pain, was to make sure nobody saw the incident. Once he checked that no one saw, he asked the old man if he was okay, and once again he replied simply with an “ooft”. This was only one of the many funny, interesting, and talented performances that I was privileged to hear.
Before attending this event, I was grateful that I had not been chosen to present my monologue at this event. However, as I sat and watched these performances, I quickly changed my mind. I was regretful for not putting as much effort into my monologue. What if I was chosen? What if I was able to present my story or poem? Would I have gotten over my fear of public speaking? Did I miss out on a great opportunity? All of these questions ran through my mind.
