Of Public Speaking
Once upon a time, I used to feign sickness whenever I had to speak in class. I recall one particular instance where I was called upon by one of my primary school teachers during an afternoon mental session to recite something. I think it was the arithmetical table. This teacher had observed that over some period of time, I had always taken ill suddenly when we had to recite anything in class. And he wasn't going to let me off the hook this fateful day. Oh my, oh my! Apparently, I was confident in my knowledge of the time table figures until I was called. It is as if when you stood up, all your ideas and answers went down. So here I was standing in front of the class. Long story short. I burst out in tears because I couldn't recall it. It was such a shame. It broke my confidence to its lowest degree. But I gradually grew strong because some other teachers gave me the opportunity to speak in class and I got better with time. At some point, I developed an affinity for words.