Toastmasters Speech: Learning Vocal Variety

One of my more challenging speeches for Toastmasters was Vocal Variety. Because I don't think as much about how things sound rather than how they read, my voice generally sounds the same throughout the whole speech I'm giving. So I had to come up with a topic that would force me to use different voices. I had written a post for my friend Laura's blog on audio books, and adjusted it so that I could give it as a speech. Here is what I came up with:

When I was little, or should I say, young, there were many professions I thought of pursuing when I grew up. Of course, I considered the traditional professions: doctor, teacher, ballerina. But there were also the slightly odd: person in the picture that came with the photo frame and audio book narrator. While none of these quite panned out, I have actually become somewhat of an audio book connoisseur, thanks to long road trips back to Denver and driving all over town for my actual job. And tonight, I’m going to share with you what I have learned.

When choosing an audio book right off the bat, you have to consider the genre, just like you would a regular book. There are audio books that can teach you things, such as languages or how to be responsible with your finances. There are nonfiction books, such as biographies, history books, political books, and self-help books. And then there are fiction books, which I prefer simply because I like a good story. Generally speaking, I tend to play it safe and pick books I would want to read anyway, because if you’re stuck in the car for eight hours, you don’t want to listen to something that doesn’t interest you.

You also need to consider the narrator. While you could pick an audio book by the narrator, I’m guessing most people, like myself, have an author and subject preference and not an actual narrator preference. So, you’ll have to give the book a test listen. This is very important because otherwise you might find yourself without a book because you can’t stand the person’s voice. This has happened several times for me—as it turns out, it is not authentic, but actually really difficult to listen to someone with a british accent read Sense and Sensibility. And while I’m sure Three Cups of Tea is a wonderful book, the narrator had a very nasally voice.

Finally, you need to remember that there might be surprises along the way. For example, many audio books incorporate sound effects. When driving to South Dakota on our very first road trip, I made Nathan listen to “Little Town On The Prairie” so he could prepare for the destination—Laura Ingalls Wilder’s home.  I love Laura Ingalls Wilder books, and everything was going fine until the fiddle started playing, and the narrator started singing. Badly.  And they sing a lot in that book. You also should bring tissues if you check out books by authors such as Nicholas Sparks, as it is a lot more realistic listening to the book than reading it. Finally, remember that unlike a real book, other people can hear the audio book you are listening to if they borrow your car. I was listening to Are You There Vodka, It’s Me Chelsea, by Chelsea Handler, which was maybe not quite appropriate to be on when Nathan took my father-in-law to the hardware store in my car. All I’m saying is, be prepared.

Audio books are a great alternative to music on long road trip or even just as you drive around town. I hope that you will remember some of these tips and apply them to your audio book choices.

Looking Ahead

Happy New Year everyone! Today marks my return to real life, back to work with no time off in sight (well, except for Martin Luther King day, but still).

I read a book over the holiday called The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin and have decided to start my own happiness project this year. I loved the book because she is a lot like me, and I was able to relate to a lot of what she was saying. One of her main motivators (like mine) is a "gold star," meaning that she expects praise or a good grade or something for, well, everything, and that is something I can defintiely relate to, as I find myself doing that a lot (and plan to work on it more this year). Her brain also works the way that mine does. Each month, she had an all-encompassing goal that was broken down into three action items of sorts and then made a spreadsheet to grade herslf on how she did accomplishing these goals. Her goals were all this that enhanced her happiness and helped her appreciate how good her life was now.

This year was probably the happiest year for me. I found a job that I love and challenged me, got to spend a lot of time with myself learning about what made me happy, spent time with my family, and grew my relationships with friends. I took a chance on myself and while I think that paid off, I also did nothing with my writing or any of the other foals I thought I would accomplish. So that is the main focus this year--expanding on what I learned this year to be even happier.

Some ways I will do this include:
*Set a time aside for writing: When I went to see Sarah Dessen, she said she writes at least an hour a day, and she's so involved in that that she feels weird when she doesn't. So I have set aside the hour of 3:00-4:00 each day to write, and if I have something going on during that time, I will fit it in another time.

*Time management: I will hopefully spend more time planning out my days this year, so I don't just get bored and watch TV. One way I plan on doing this is through my to-do lists, which I will show you all later this week. This will let me catch up on work more, focus on the blog more, and also get some things done around the house.

*Calm down: One thing that gets in the way of my happiness is anxiety that I get over, well, anything. Worrying gets me nowhere, and of course I shut the garage door, so taking small steps to calm myself down will help me generally be less stressed about the little things.

*Focus on relationships: I want to continue to strengthen relationships with Nathan, my friends, and my family this year. I am lucky to have wonderful people in my life, and I want to appreciate that!

And the best part of my happiness project is the cute journal I got to write it down in. Now that's motivation.

Feeling Merry

I just returned from a week away in Denver, celebrating Christmas with my family. I feel very blessed that we were able to have the time together and also see many extended family members and friends while we were having our white Coloardo Christmas. It felt extra special this year to all be together.

Since today is the last day of 2011, I thought I'd make a list (my favorite) of my top moments this year. And next week (yes, I promise to be back next week, but probably not so early) I'll talk about the start of my happiness project.

*My new job: A year in, and I am loving the decision to change jobs to something that I not only love, but something that challenges me.
*Our kitchen: We're about halfway done now, but I still love the change that is in the room now. I still can't find the exact right place for everything, but it just feels better.
*Outdoor work: The garage is wonderful, and our new patio will be so nice this spring and summer. I know Nathan has big plans for the yard this year, too, and it's going to be the nicest yard in Lincoln, I'm sure.
*Vacationing: Our trip to the Bahamas was a much-needed break from the cold. And I love that many of our trips were ones that let us see family and friends this year!
*Celebrating: So many of our friends and family celebrated big events this year: babies, weddings, engagements, moving back to Lincoln, and it is fun to be a part of their joy.
*Shelby: Little Shelby and I have gotten to know each other much better now that we spend so much time together. It's really good entertainment being home and learning all of her little quirks. I think I'd be bored out of my mind being home without her, though I have to admit I get a lot more done when she's not afraid of the vacuum, the hairdryer, the steamer, etc.

Wishing you a happy New Year!

Kitchen Progress

I had planned on doing a book review for you all today, but my friend Kelley requested kitchen photos instead. So we will save the book review for another day and instead let my first post in a while be mostly pictures!

These are the new cabinets about the stove, and our awesome corner cabinet. Originally, if you remember, we planned on doing open shelving over there, but it wasn't as easy to build as we thought. In the end, I was very glad we ended up with it because it holds all of our small appliances easily, and I don't really like everyone seeing the chaos that is generally our cabinets.

This is the other side of the kitchen. Even just with the upper cabinets done, we have more storage, so I moved my cookbooks into the kitchen so they are more accessibly.

Here is the fun rug I found at crate and barrel while shopping with my mom. You can also see some work that we still have to do--baseboard over on the far wall, the tall cabinet will be emptied and taken out of the kitchen so we can put the door in, and the bottom cabinets still need to be painted or replaced so the dishwasher can be installed.

Jim is currently working on the cabinet for the other side of the room, next to the fridge, so I'll show you that when it's all done.

Fall Love

Today is a dreary, dreary day, and I have to admit that Daylight Saving Time put me in such a good mood, I don't even mind. It's the perfect kind of day to drink hot chocolate and curl up with a well-loved book. Shelby on the other hand is having a very hard time adjusting to the time change and keeps trying to get us up early.

I am also loving that we finally have fall because I excitedly pulled out my winter clothes! I had worked on updating my wardrobe last year to have more work and home friendly items that didn't scream college student, and this year I realized that most of my sweaters had seen better days. So I decided to go out shopping.

Last weekend I found some great deals at Ann Taylor Loft--all sale things were 50%, so most of the things I got were $20, including some super comfy cardigans. It wasn't until I got home that I realized I already had at least two black and gray cardigans, but they do go with everything. I also found some super comfy sweaters at Target as well a $10 tall black boots. Then yesterday I got a sweater cape. Sweater capes fall into the category of "trends I questioned until I gave in and now can't imagine life without them" like tall boots and skinny jeans. I have been wearing it around the house all day and it is like wearing a blanket. Plus it makes me feel like an old-fashioned book character. Or Sherlock Holmes.

Toastmasters Speech: Learning Body Language

Since it is Toastmasters day today, I thought I'd share the speech I gave a couple of weeks ago. At the time it was five days before Shelby's adopt-iversary, and since the speech focus was "your body speaks," I decided to improvise some of Shelby's movements. So, whenver you see me describing a look, or see the word this, imagine me pretending to be Shelby.

I have never considered myself to be a dog person. I mean, sure, I like dogs and I loved our family dogs, but I never understood the people who are crazy over their dogs. You know, the people who talk about dogs like they’re children, the people who let their dogs sleep in the bed, the people who take their dogs everywhere they possibly can. And then we got Shelby.

Shelby the sheltie joined our family almost a year ago. We got her from a friend of a friend—they had two puppies left in a litter that had been born in June, meaning Shelby was four months old when we got her. And we were perhaps irresponsible dog owners, in that we did basically no research on the breed before we got her.

Here’s how I decided I wanted I wanted a sheltie. I found some at a local rescue and decided they were cute. I sent the link to my friend Leah, who said, Trent and Jess have sheltie puppies, let’s go look at them this weekend. So off she, Nathan, and I went to “look at the puppies.” We watched the two puppies play together and played with them, and then, when she got tired, Shelby climbed right into Nathan’s lap. Obviously, we were heading to PetCo to get supplies for our new puppy within the hour. And so started our journey with Shelby.

As we later found out, Shelties are known for being loving, loyal, affectionate, and willing to please and obey. They are also very vocal and expressive dogs.  And Shelby is no exception. She is our little shadow, We have learned a lot about Shelby over the course of the year, and she really is like a furry little person, with her own personality and expressions. That’s right—my dog has expressions. And tonight, I’m going to demonstrate some of them for you, as they are really the best way to get to know Shelby.

The first, most essential Shelby look is “the potty look,” which looks like this. When we brought Shelby home, Trent and Jess had already been working on potty-training her, so she was familiar with the concept. And during the first week, Nathan figured out that this meant I need to go outside. So really, potty-training Shelby was pretty easy. However, she soon figured out that if she wanted to go outside, all she had to do was tilt her head and we would stop whatever we were doing to take her out, even if she didn’t really need to go and all she wanted to do was play fetch. While we tried to break her of this habit, it was often met with the I’m so cute so give me what I want look. She also used this look to get us to let her start sitting on the furniture and sleeping on the bed. What can I say, it’s hard to say no to this.

This next look is not to be confused with the potty look. It is instead the look Shelby uses to communicate with us (demonstrate). When we talk to her or ask her questions, she’ll respond with head tilts. Now, I’m pretty sure she can’t actually understand what we’re saying most of the time, but, there have been some instances where I think she can. For example, we were talking about what flavor of food we should get for her next: chicken, beef, deer, rabbit, or duck. She’s She sat there listening tilting her head, and when we said duck, she went like this. So we bought her the duck and since then, she’s eating like a normal dog rather than picking at it like she was before. Maybe she understands us after all.

The best Shelby look is what we like to call big toothy grin, which looks like this. She did this a lot when she was a puppy and was very happy with whatever she was doing—playing fetch, doing her obstacle course, chewing up shoes—that kind of thing. She doesn’t do big toothy grin very often anymore though, and instead just smiles.

Other expressions in Shelby’s repertoire include the glare, the stoic look, the wink, and the I’m watching you look. And if you’re not watching her when she wants you to be watching her, she will paw at your hand like this until you start paying attention to her.

As you can see, Shelby is very good at expressing herself in ways that we understand. Or maybe after a year, we’ve just come to an understanding. And maybe, after a year, I’m one of those crazy dog people after all.
I thought the speech went really well, but I was surprised by the feedback, most particuarly the comment that I was using the word "and" too often. I am not sure if it is a "speech" thing, but I am curious about the hatred for conjunctions--there have been other times people comment on using and, but, or, etc. at the beginning of sentences and how this is "bad grammar." I personally love using these words at the start of my sentences (and I'm sure if you go back and read this, you could have a rather fun drinking game with my use of conjunctions), so it might just be something I have to accept that I will be called out on.

Ghost Stories

Today, I went to the library. Now, really, pretty much every blog post I write ever (assuming I am back to regular blogging, which I am attempting now that life has settled down a bit) could start with today, I went to the library. Because I go to the library a lot--there are some weeks where I go literally every day.

Lately, I haven't checked out any books I'm totally in love with. I've checkd out many audio books that I'm totally in love with, that's for sure, but nothing that I've read. So today, I checked out two books I've already read. But I checked them out because the third book in the series comes out today: The Strangers on Montagu Street.

I originally checked out the two pervious books for the cruise, without knowing that they were more ghost stories than they were historical house stories. And for those of you who don't know, I have a huge fear of ghosts. They freak me out--in fact, they are the reason that I am afraid of the dark. I did actually have nightmares on the cruise while reading them, but I can't resist them because they are that good. Plus, it always does us a little good to face our fears, which is why I checked these out again and also why I'm trying really hard to listen to people's birth stories and not immediately hide my eyes when someone gives birth on TV (yes, giving birth is my second biggest fear).

With a lighter work week ahead, maybe I can get these books finished before Friday and then head over to barnes and noble and read the third one on my nook . . .