For my final exam in my speech class, we had to give a speech. Makes sense, right?
This one was a two-minute tribute speech. I thought you might be interested how, in a class of 21 folks, people broke down on subject matter. I paid tribute to "The Public Speaker." This was a softball move including everyone in the class (and everyone who's ever spoken publicly) while really pinpointing the importance of public speaking in our society. It was short, well-received (I think), and I got a 100, though I think most everyone did on this. We were not an emotional bunch, but we were effective and motivated like Monroe. Our Prof came ready to be moved and cry, but I think we fell well short of that goal. Here's what folks talked about:
There were three mom speeches. One "strong woman, she's my rock" kind of speech, and two of the "nurturing caregiver" variety. I think one of these was given without notes and in kind of a big hurry. In addition, there was one other collective "both parents" speech, and it was so strongly delivered that I feel like I know Rabia's parents now. We also had one dad speech, and apparently the guy's dad is unkillable, but they only know this because he has terrible luck. This was not the lesson he chose to take, unsurprisingly, from his dad's various medical recoveries. Near the end, we had Janeel's granddaddy, Tom King, and we also had one Big Sister speech to round out the family category. She recommended we watch this movie.
As far as inspiration in people's personal lives not coming from their families, we had one youth minister, Mark Smith, who inspired our speaking to become a youth minister, so you can draw a straight line through that. We also had two teachers, Mrs. Harris, a 6th Grade teacher who cared about her students enough to look in on them in the hospital, and Ms. Benedict, a high school Criminal Justice teacher (no, I don't know how that works, either) who taught the speaker to make a sand cast of a tire track so she sounds pretty fucking awesome to me. Finally, my least favorite person in the class gave an uninspiring, rambly, no-notes quickie about his scoutmaster, Mr. Dan Weaver. He also passed around his Eagle Scout wallet and talked about how hard it is to become an Eagle Scout. I was glad when he was done.
We had a very gung-ho tribute to MTSU's Pep Band, which was delivered passionately by someone who's said two words all semester, but who did this one so well I'm thinking about joining Pep Band. We had one on RFK, focusing on the speaker's perception that RFK takes a "back seat" to MLK and other civil rights leaders in that movement and deserves more recognition. The Walt Disney one focused on the magic and wonder that Disney set out to achieve, and the Oprah one was about her being a trailblazer. The presenter wore purple, which I thought was a nice touch. The guy who wore the longshoreman's cap and leather jacket all semester did his on Les Paul (his last one was about Tom Petty) and the dorky guy who did one of his other speeches about one of the characters from this show, did his final (without notes, which was not a good move) on the titular character from this movie. This leads me to believe that perhaps he doesn't know of any real people.
There were two "funny" speeches. One girl, after telling us about her fun friends, Coco, Lesley and Chanel, revealed that they were in fact, shoes, but had no substance or punchline after the reveal. The other guy, though, who paid tribute to his best friend Sonic Drive In Restaurant on the grounds that they always make him feel better, are near when he needs them and never let him go hungry, amused me to no end.
Finally (she didn't go last, but I'm putting her finally), there was Jill's inspirational and heartwarming speech about her 1/2 pound hamster friend, Marshmallow, who's got enough loyalty, character and personality to be very small dog. Marshmallow apparently subsists primarily on hamster food, but with large supplements of Twizzlers and other junk food. This was the only pet highlighted, and Jill made sure we got to see pictures of Marshmallow, which I think was the closest our Prof got to tears, unless it was tears of joy to see us heading out the door, never to return.
