The white noise of the microphone blared through the speakers and with that came a wave of silence from everyone in the auditorium. As I was sitting in the second to front row of the auditorium, I could see hear the principal stepping up to the podium and starting the event off with the general,” Hello and welcome to…” With this came the sudden shift of attention from your peers directly up to the front of the stage. He declared into the microphone, “Welcome to the annual CMS Speech Hall of Fame.” My gaze then shifted from the principal to the people that were sitting around me, who were looking just about as nervous as I was at the point, to be able to go in front of this mass of people and to be able to deliver a speech without messing anything up. But we had rehearsed so many times that we all were just hoping that the correct way to do it was already implanted into our minds and it will just happen without cognition, but, we all knew that no matter how much practice we had put into it, it would come down more on the nervousness. With this some of the stress of going up and performing went away, but a good amount still lingered all around us. But, even with that extra boost of confidence, I could still hear the nervous chatter about how well that they thought it would go from the people around me as the principal was finishing up his introduction. Not one person in this group of twelve or thirteen students looked fully able to give a full speech that day, but we all knew that we were at the point that was beyond return, and there is no turning back from here now. As the welcoming had concluded, the first speaker was introduced and went up to the stage to deliver his speech. As he walked passed the rows of people we could all hear little bits of chatter such as “good luck out there” or “just try to have fun”. We all were watching him as he came up to the stage and started on his speech with a nervous smile on his face the whole time. To us it seemed like a mere five or ten minutes that he was speaking, but from my experience, i knew that he thought it would have lasted a lifetime. As more people stood up, delivered their speeches and sat back down, I knew that my time to speak was closer and closer every time, and with that came the increasing wave of knowing that I was closer and closer to presenting each time. As the person before me had been called up to the podium to present, I started to get very nervous, and my knees were shaking as I was sitting down in my chair. As he concluded his speech, I began to lock up, and became very tense and did not want to go up to the stage to risk the possibility of messing up and embarrassing myself. As the person before me had concluded, the round of applause ended, and he sat back down, the principal came back up and cleared his voice into the microphone and said “Gabriel .” As I stood upwards, people began to squish to their seats and let me pass by to get to the front of the stage. I thought about what I have learned in the classes on how to deliver the speech properly. At first, when I had arrived to the stage I was fully stiff, not moving a muscle at all and just surveying the audience that was seated all around me. But recognizing that I was doing the same thing that I had to fix to work, I quickly adjusted my posture so that I seemed more relaxed and not as uptight. As i started on my introduction to the speech i could feel all of the gazes of the people setting in on me and very little chatter of whispers between people that I could not tell if they were about me or just miscellaneous topics. At first, I knew that I sounded very mild and timid so I attempted to up the voloume of my voice so I can sound more professional and demanding while presenting. But, I did not let the talking get to me and I just tried to continue on with my speech as if I had not noticed that anyone was there. As I was going through my speech, I had to avert my gaze from the left side of the auditorium to have to stay away from looking away from my friends, who were trying to make funny faces at me to try and make me laugh during my speech so that I mess up. But, they were not trying to be mean, it was just a fun little joke that they were trying to pull off, and to my content, it did not work. As my speech went on and began to draw to an end, I noticed that it really was the fact that I thought that I had to be nervous that made me nervous, and it really was not that hard to deliver at all, and I thought that the others may be thinking the same thing as me. So, as I reached my conclusion, I was fully confident of my ability to be able to speak in front of many people and now thought that it was easy. When I finished, a round of applause had come up, reassuring that I had done well,and then I made my way back to my seat to sit back down and wait for the next person to come up and do their speech. When the whole thing had finished, I had gotten to talk at all of the other people who had done speeches, and they said that they had similar experiences with the fact that by thinking that it would be scary is the part that would make it scary, and the speech part was not actually all that bad. Later that month, at the eighth grade graduation, I was picked to speak in front of an even larger crowd, including all of the students and a majority of the parents, and it seemed to go by like a breeze. Even with the added pressure of my parents and siblings attending this time, I had a reassured confidence from the speech hall of fame that I would be able to do well in this situation. I was able to get up to the front of the stage, address everyone with my speech and going back without a sweat.