At the beginning of CAS, or IB in general, I wasn’t very good at speaking with strangers. I’ve mentioned this in previous journal entries as well, but I truly believe it’s been one of my strongest areas of growth. Phone calls to strangers are no longer intimidating, and speaking in public is much less intimidating. As a whole, speaking has been a very different and much more fluid experience for me. I’ve had to have polite small talk in Spanish with complete strangers, and while it was a bit awkward at first, I’m proud of how far I’ve come.
One instance of this was when I went to get something printed for art today, in Tamarindo. I had to call Creativa, the company in which I got it printed, and confirm that they’d received the email I’d sent with the photos, along with the dimensions. It went for the most part fairly smoothly, but I’ve also had experiences where the opposite has occurred, and I choke on my words. This happened a couple of days ago, speaking in Spanish to one of the workshop managers (Jose Ali) and I just fumbled my words and couldn’t get another coherent sentence out for the rest of the conversation.
The only way to practice is to do, and so that’s been my plan, to take any opportunity to speak to strangers and practice public speaking.
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