My Daughter the Public Speaker

We didn’t have a big birthday dinner celebration last night for my wife because we had a school activity we needed to attend. This was an activity for my daughter who wasn’t involved in a Christmas Pageant since she is in the fifth grade and beyond the pageantry of the Christmas season at least according to her teachers. Instead of a Christmas/Holiday pageant the students were tasked with a business presentation.

A select group of 40 fifth graders were given this project by one of my daughter’s teachers who I must say is a great teacher. This is the first time in my daughter’s scholastic career that she has a male for a teacher and she could not have gotten a better teacher. This particular teacher has over 30 years in the field but instead of getting himself ready for retirement he is teaching with passion. It is obvious he really cares about the students and once again we have been blessed in how well everything continues to work out.

This was a business proposal and my daughter has been working on it with her “business partner” over the past few weeks. Normally we are very involved with our daughter’s school work but this project has been very “hush—hush” as my daughter did most of the work over at her “business partner’s” house. We only knew the concept and nothing else so we were very anxious to see the presentation.

My daughter and her partner were the last to present and when we were first told about this we were sort of disappointed but as soon as the event started I was very interested. The children had to pick a product, research, do a statistical analysis and present their findings to an auditorium of family and friends. This could be unnerving for a college graduate let alone 10 and 11 year olds. The children did a fantastic job and it was evident that a great deal of work was put into all of the presentations. The products ranged from energy drinks to sodas to jet propelled backpacks!!

It was time for my daughter and her partner to present and they both did a remarkable job. I was a little concerned because my daughter has a proclivity to be a “low talker” and when she speaks especially in a large group it is often difficult to hear her. However; this was not the case last night; she projected her voice exceptionally well and she certainly channeled her nervous energy. She was nervous and I offered a few words of encouragement but I thought I shouldn’t say much and have faith she would do very well and she did great. I had the video recorder and recorded the entire presentation. The girls did put a great deal of effort into everything. They had a board filled with statistics and other facts about their product which was custom designed Christmas shirt. This wasn’t their only product as tee shirts could be customized for just about any other holiday.

I was very impressed with the entire event and so impressed with my daughter. Wow she is really growing up so quickly and it seems just like yesterday she was in that same auditorium doing a Christmas spectacular now she was professionally dressed pitching a very well thought out product. My goodness life goes by so quickly but thankfully I am here and able to experience these extraordinary moments.

It was so funny after the program was over I made my way over to my daughter and told her how well she did and she said, “Daddy, did you see my knees knocking together?” She was so nervous her knees were knocking together but instead of succumbing to this fear she rose up and overcame it providing a great presentation. Of course I am biased but I think she and her partner had one of the best presentations of everyone. There was one little boy who had such a great personality that carried his presentation so well and in fact most of the children were very impressive in their own right. I think this was such a great idea and I am so glad my daughter’s teacher embarked on this project because these children learned so much about themselves and I certainly learned so much about my daughter. I have always known she is a great child and very intelligent but she put everything together last night and her beautiful “being” was on display, what a great way to end my wife’s birthday.

Today I was back at the gym with a pair of new running shoes. One of the drawbacks of running so many miles is the fact that I go through running shoes so quickly. I do believe that my calf problem was partially due to the fact that my running shoes were breaking down. I painstakingly researched a new pair of running shoes over the past few weeks and finally settled on a pair. This could be a very costly item but thankfully I found a very good running shoe that is moderately priced.

I am working my way through all the main running shoe manufacturers and in spite of me having my favorites I wanted a running shoe from a manufacturing I never have worn. The shoe arrived very quickly and today was the first day I wore them. The shoes felt good but I broke them in very quickly as my “blood” blister popped during my 10 mile run. I had no idea it popped until I was done and looked at the red spot on my new running shoe and thought that is odd but upon further inspection I realized what had happened. Oh well this is all part of “dirty” side of running long distance. The running shoes were very good and should be a good addition for the marathon next month.