Wished that I vanished

Known in my family as the clumsy queen, I'm always been an accident-prone walking creature oftentimes ended up wishing to simply disappear from the face of the earth just to save my sorry ass from public humiliation.

photo from google

Talking about wishing to simply vanish into thin air, I once wished the first time I experienced this dreadful stage fright moment. Fourteen years back, on my third year college, I was convinced to join our college debating team. An  inter-college debate was about to happen in our university and they needed a team to represent our college. Based on my past high school experiences, I knew I kind of sucked on class debates. But just to help out my college, I blindly accepted the challenge. Little did I know, I had this awful "disease" known as stage fright.


We practiced everyday and did pretty good research on our subject. Time came for the judgement day. Dressed on our pearly white college uniforms and pinned with our shining college badges, we walked in the conference hall with a dramatic entrance. Why dramatic? We were a bit late. Everybody was already settled in their seats except for us, the moment we came in, all heads turned. Yes, embarrassing yet dramatic. My then avid suitor (now my husband), who belonged to the opponent team's college, was never been proud to see me get into the room and cheered for us (hmmm, at least that was what he told me).


Onstage, each team breezed for our opening speeches. But then, when the points of information were thrown to us by the opposing team (and they were good), my brain suddenly shut down. I became so nervous, my palms sweated, my face and ears got hotter and I could feel my body trembled. I never felt so terrified. I felt nauseous. I could not focus on the question. What did he say again? I felt stupid standing behind the podium with a microphone on hand. Wished the show would end at that instant. Wished I would wake up from such a  terrible nightmare.


Then my mind, instead of thinking for smart answers to throw back was just secretly regretting about joining the contest. I should not have joined the debate in the first place. I should have studied even harder for the competition. Never did I thought being on stage will be this overwhelming ~ with the expectant audience, the seriousness of the competition, the fact that it was my first time to join a real debate, and that I was some lousy public speaker and a pretty bad debater.

Then I realized our team was losing. Our rebuttal was equally bad. I never felt so embarrassed my whole single life and in that instant, I wished the floor would open up wide and swallow me whole.


Yes, such was those onslaught of dreadful stage fright. Wished I could glamour everybody (like the vampire Bill Compton) to erase their memories of my humiliation lol. I knew I would be smarter the next time ~ that means never to join such competitions ever again lol. It's just way out of my league or I'm just too ambitious for it. If it's  unavoidable to speak in front of a huge crowd, then I should be well-prepared and well-equipped to go on to battle, armed with my powerful ammunition ready for the kill. Cheers!

This post was inspired by fabulous Mama Kat, where I will write about a time I wanted to disappear. If you want to join this meme, link up every Thursday.