English Toast

The other day, Berna, a former officemate and her French-American husband came for a visit to our office. They wanted to see old friends before going back to the US the next day (yesterday). Berna’s close friend in the office is actually Jane but since she had to leave early for her son’s graduation, they were left entirely to our care J! The others did not want to talk with Bernard, Berna’s husband much since they said they were not comfortable communicating in English, baka maubusan daw sila ng Ingles (run out of English words to say). Though I really did not intend on talking much since I was working on something… it turned out that I got to talk with them most of the time.

We had a good conversation since Bernard is well traveled and has lots of stories to share plus it is always nice to interact with happy couples. I’ve got more stories on the couple but the conversation made me think of the English language since fortunately hindi naman ako naubusan ng Ingles (did not run out of English words to say)… truth is I feel more comfortable writing in English than speaking it or should I say my hands speak better English than my lips. When I write my mind automatically turns to English mode.. I think in English… but when I talk oftentimes I think Tagalog! Don’t really know if that makes sense but that’s the way it seems to go for me…

Anyway such thoughts reminded me of my attending a toastmaster’s club a long time ago. There was an advertisement in the newspaper of a speech workshop to be conducted by the Toastmaster’s club near our office and I invited my boss to join. She is a confident speaker but I wanted someone to go with and good thing that she obliged. It was fun joining a toastmaster club… their speechcraft is actually integrated with their meetings… you follow a program in the speechcraft and when you talk (assigned topic) they give you feedback but aside from members’ and speechcrafters’ presentations, the program is divided into segments… I could not really recall them anymore but there were different topics – serious and current events, fun and amusing stories, impromptu and prepared speeches. In that club, the regular members (old-timers) gave out prizes for the “best” in each category…and I was surprised to be getting prizes each time since I knew that I wasn’t really the best. I really could not figure out how they made choices for the winner but of course I was always happy to be bringing home a token after each session. The mystery wasn’t solved until I was NOT able to attend a few meetings and I got a friendly “how are you?” card from one of the old-timers there. Actually I also got a reminder call from another member so I thought it was just a reminder card… then I got other cards including a valentine’s card from the said old-timer with a note that he was a widower and likes me! Wow!!! I finally figured out why I was always getting an award! I got an admirer!!! That means that I was always assured of one vote each time and he just needed another vote for me (probably from his friends?)… and viola.. I am a winner!!!

Pretty neat, huh? It should have been…but then again I wanted to be voted on because of my ability and not because of my looks…hehehe (Did I mention that I could be egotistical at times???)… anyway that actually toasted or should I say fried my desire to join some more meetings! I could have been an eloquent speaker… instead I am still the same unique and perfectly imperfect Beth… hmmm…well that’s still good enough for me! I unique… and I neat!!!