My dad sent me some quotes this morning, one of which reminded me of something funny. When I was a freshman in college, we had to do impromptu speeches in rhetoric class. We were given a quote and then had about 30 seconds to begin speaking on it. I like to think I'm better at giving speeches now than I was then, but man, I was really bad at it then. I doubt anyone else who was in that class remembers my speech, but it certainly made an impression on me. I had made very few speeches before and I was relatively shy (or at least self-conscious) so the thought of making up a speech on the spot terrified me. Here's the quote I was assigned:
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former." (Albert Einstein)
I got up there, read my quote, and proceeded to do a stand-up comedy routine on human stupidity which included many examples I had encountered in my seventeen years of life. I don't know why I remember that speech more than any others I gave in that class, but the fear of the impromptu speech certainly made an impression on me, which was, I guess, the idea behind the assignment.
Posted by christin at June 6, 2003 10:26 AM