Church Assembly talk: Jessica Yang '18
You might think that standing up here in front of the whole school is no big deal for me, since I do it all the time. In fact, my heart is pounding right now. As much as I love and am used to performing in front of a huge crowd, I hate it, because I always get so nervous.
My first time ever standing in front of a big audience was when I was 9. I was dragged by my parents to a public speaking class, where I was eventually forced to enter a national junior oratorical contest. Weeks before the contest, I was given sheets of papers with a 5-minute speech written on it. There were highlights and marks all over the papers, and my teacher demanding things like "LOUDER" "Slow...down..." "Faster! Faster!"And I was just tossed around like that for the next few weeks until my nitpicky teacher was "ok" with it. I had no idea what the speech meant, but I was trained to fake it perfectly to the audience. So I went up there and did exactly what I was supposed to do. I wasn't nervous or scared at all. It was just one of the many things that I was forced to do. I ended up getting a gold trophy.
However, it didn't feel that great. And I never knew why, until I did my first recitation at the Abbey - you know, 'He clasps the crag with crooked hands...' After our class had thoughtfully analyzed the poem with Mrs. Bonin, I was shocked at how the words were so perfectly chosen. I had to convey all the meanings and images in the poem. Before my turn to recite, I got so scared that I couldn't listen to other people reciting theirs at all. What if I mess up? What if I make it boring? What if no one can feel how amazing the poem is? Those six lines were the hardest lines to memorize in my entire Abbey career, so I didn't really get all that expressive in my recitation. But after reciting it without making a mistake, I never felt so proud in my life. The A- Mrs. Bonin gave me meant way more than the trophy I got at the national contest. I realized that it was because, while I didn't care at all if I actually conveyed the moral of that five-minute speech, I genuinely wanted to be able to express every word in a poem.
After that, I've been in front of audiences so many times, but even experience can't help me from getting nervous sometimes. I was very nervous when I had to sing at Berklee; when I did my recitation with Dan Rodden and basically just had to slap him, kick him, and push him against the wall; when I had to say, "I got the superior musicianship award at the Berklee high school jazz festival"; when I go up in schola and say, "Please join us in singing our recessional hymn, Shine Jesus Shine." I get so nervous!
Telling you all this, I'm probably making myself sound like a loser, but what I'm trying to say is that everyone can get nervous for even the smallest things. And that it's ok to be nervous. We get nervous because we care and we want to make things good; because I wanted people to imagine the majestic eagle. I wanted to make good music, make people laugh and appreciate Shakespeare, pump up the closer look students, and not interrupt the sacred mass in any way. Even Dr. Zins gets nervous before every class, he told me, because he really wants us to learn and understand important things that he teaches, and it sucks to have a bad class. (So stop asking what's for lunch and actually pay attention in class, Sam Ding.)
Anyways, it's natural to get nervous. But, if it bothers you too much, here's some advice. Telling yourself that it's ok doesn't really help you relax, in my experience. Instead of trying to calm down, try to think about how great you will feel when you have aced something you were nervous about. Nerves are just life's way of telling you something matters. So if you're nervous before a game or a match, tell yourself that this is important to you, and that you're going to win. Before a recitation, imagine that when you have finished, there will be something like "Great job!!!" coming from Mrs. Bonin, or "Good" and that approving look from Mrs. McDermott, or "Well done" from Dr. Bonin. Thank you!