Table Topic (impromptu speech) on anger, evaluated

 At Harrovians Gill gave a one hour workshop on evaluating.

Several of us had the opportunity to to a table topic, an impromptu speech for 3 minutes, then another volunteer evaluated.

The question I had to answer was, 

When was the last time you were angry?

I opened

Opening

I can't remember the last time I was angry. I think it must have been when I was about four years old.

That got a laugh.

The body of my speech was

Anger

I don't get angry. I don't cry. The last time I cried was when my parents died. After that I never bothered getting angry and crying over trivia. 

People write comments on newspaper articles, 'when I read about so and so happened, I cried'. 

Crying Over The News

Crying over strangers? What a waste of a day, a life. If you cry all the time about things which happened to other people miles away, there are several million people in your own country and the world, You'd be crying all the time about people you don't know and never met.

That's who I don't cry.

 I don't get so angry that I cry, or make somebody else angry or cry. 

What if the angry person is somebody you know, your boss? 

I read that somebody got angry and made staff cry. Don't get angry and make others cry. Don't cry if others get angry.

People get upset over trivial things. Parking spaces.

Anger Over Parking Spaces

Direct your anger at the council who don't provide enough parking spaces.

You find one, or you don't. Crying doesn't help.

Crying Over Speeches

Just after my father died I went to a |Toastmasters meeting where visitors were asked to speak on a table topic, for 2 minutes. A newcomer was asked a question about football. She knew nothing about football and burst into tears. I thought, my father just died, I am not crying. She is crying because she could not answer about football, about which she knows nothing, and cares nothing, in front people she doesn't know who don't know her. 

How silly to cry.

Here's my Call To Inaction

My advice to you is, don't cry, and don't angry. 

But if you do get angry or cry, I won't cry, and I won't get angry. 

I can't remember the last time I got angry.

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Verdicts

Evaluator 1

The evaluator commented on the fact that

1  I launched straight into the subject. 

2 I used humour.

3 I told a personal story.

4 It related to everybody.

Evaluator 2

Angela repeated and word AND. 

(I cut the word and out of my written version here.)

Evaluator 3

I told my husband this when I got home. He laughed at the start. 

He asked me, 'Did you win the ribbon for the best table topic?'

'No,' I answered. 'There was no voting.'

He smiled, 'Never mind. If there had been a vote, you would have won.'

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