Caroline Jarvis

10/17/14
Personal Narrative Essay
Ive always been a fairly shy person, to say the least. In elementary school, I rarely
answered questions even though I knew the answers and only had a few close friends that I
would speak to. I was always the type of person to get my work done a few minutes after it was
assigned, so that I had to wait for all my other classmates to finish their work. My teachers all
enjoyed having me in their classes and described me as the perfect student, but I always had
issues speaking up for myself and doing anything that involved public speaking.
My issues with public speaking persisted until the fifth grade, when my mom urged me to
run for a position in the Student Council Association. I was reluctant at first, thinking that no one
would vote for me and that I would just embarrass myself in front of all the second, third, forth,
and other fifth graders. It took her a while to convince me to turn in my application for SCA
President and to work on my posters for the campaign. My mom also helped me in writing my
speech, which included a catchy little jingle I would have to perform at the end even though it
was obvious I couldnt sing a single note.
The two people I was running against both happened to be some of my friends. Of
course, that made things a little weird whenever we spoke and saw each others campaign posters
in the hallways. We all were friendly with each other up until the day of the election, where we
would read our speeches off notecards on the cafeteria stage to all the other grades. I was one of
the last ones to give their speech, considering that they went in order of lowest ranking office to
highest ranking office. After everyone gave their speech, the students would go back to their
classrooms and vote on a small ballot, and we would usually learn the results by the end of the

day. I knew that I shouldnt be nervous about speaking in front of all these people, since they
were all elementary schoolers and most didnt even care about who won the election.
When it was my turn to get up and speak, I stood up from my miniature, uncomfortable
chair they used in the classrooms and walked up to the lectern and stood on the podium, making
sure that everyone could see me and made sure to adjust the microphone. Back then, I was
almost as tall as I am now, while the majority of the other kids were starting to grow taller and
taller. I gave the speech, both my legs and my voice occasionally shaking. Like the students had
did for every other speech, there was a round of applause at the end and we were released to go
back to our classrooms.
The school day went on like it usually did, without any interruptions, until they called all
of the candidates down to the library at two forty-five, since the elementary schools usually let
students out to the buses at three. We had some food and drinks to celebrate and they started to
announce who had won the office positions. Time seemed to go by dreadfully slow as they went
through every office; reporter, treasurer, secretary, vice president, then finally, president. It took
me a while to calm myself as the winner of vice president was celebrating and shaking hands
with the opponents that they had beat. Finally, the SCA Advisor listed who the candidates for
President were and announced who won.
You could say I was shocked when they announced my name, but that would be an
understatement. The mix of emotions I was feeling at the time were indescribable. I was excited,
relieved, incredibly overjoyed, and maybe even a little sick. Now that I had won, I would be the
person to run all the SCA meetings and to help make the posters for all of our school events,
which involved getting up in front of a large group again. By the end of the school year, I was
more comfortable with speaking in front of large groups, but I wasnt totally over my fear yet.

The next time I had to do public speaking was in eighth grade, when I decided to run for
SCA Vice President. I seemed to have a knack for leadership roles in elementary school and the
previous years of middle school, so I decided it wouldnt hurt to try. This time we were going to
be recording our speeches in the student activities room, with no one but a camera and its
operator. This made me feel like uneasy about what I was going to say and actually gave me
more courage to be lively and happier than my usual self.
About a week after filming our speeches, they were going to be aired during the last
block of our school day and we would vote on them. When my video came on, I made sure to
look at my desk instead of the screen so I wouldnt feel embarrassed about the speech that was
being read on the video. Unlike when we had the elections in elementary school, we werent
immediately called in to see the results, but we were called in the next day, right near the end of
our last block. The race was close, but I ended up losing to a more charismatic, likable guy
named Joseph. This made me a bit less confident, but I made sure to remind myself that the votes
were close and only off by a few points.
The last time I did public speaking was after I joined the LSA. Since were the Legal
Studies Academy, it involves a lot of public speaking, mock trials, and presentations in front of
small and large groups. Last year was the year that I really became self-confident and felt alright
about speaking in front of larger groups. Every time I had to do it, I just thought no one really
cares, its school, they arent listening, and they arent paying attention and it made me feel a bit
less nervous to know that people werent judging me as much as I thought they were. Through
Mr. Pratts mock trial on Julius Caesar, the panels for Mrs. Weigl, the end of the year
presentations for Mr. Godfrey I kept telling myself that no one was judging me and that it

wasnt that big of a deal. It made me feel like I could do anything, like I was finally learning to
accept that speaking in front of groups wasnt as bad as I thought it would be.