Schizophrenic Speech

This assignment turned out to be a little complicated. I was transferred into the class a day late, and the first day they had already begun working on an assignment. The assignment required that two people interviewed each other, asking 15 questions and creating a story answering these 15 questions. However, since I was late all the people had been taken so I was forced to present myself. Seeing as I had no way to have anyone read my own speech, I had to read all the parts, and all the characters. Thus the title, writing this started out to be fun, but by the end became very difficult to portray all the different sides of myself, and present them in an artful manor. Over all I consider the speech to be a success. Enjoy, please comment me with any and all criticisms or questions, or anything at all.



“Ok, um… hi. My name is Dustin Douros and I am a junior.” He stood there in front of the whole class while his insides shook with fear, stumbling over what he thought was every word. “15 interesting things about me, when I heard the assignment I was a little intimidated” he still was “after a lot of thought I think I might be able to pull it off.” Deep down he really had no confidence; he subconsciously prayed that the judgmental class would not see through his façade. “Well I suppose I should start with the most interesting things and work down from there.” He then realized that doing this would put the audience thinking of his life’s most boring details by the end of his presentation, “no, actually I think I will do it the other way around” then he heard how stupid he sounded changing his original statement. Making yet another social mistake, he said “actually, maybe I will just improvise…” He could feel his face begin to burn, his palms became moist with sweat, and his toes scrunched in an unrhythmic crazed fashion. He looked down at his feet and thought about how uncomfortable talking about himself made him feel. Why couldn’t he talk about another person, ‘I always feel so conceited talking about myself’ he thought. Within a split second, all the times that he had been forced to talk about himself flashed through his mind, and it added to his discomfort. With all of the distractions in his mind, he barely managed to speak “Well I might as well start off with my family; I have four siblings, three of which are adopted. My older brother and I are biological. My three younger siblings are adopted from Asia and Placer County.” After hearing himself speak he realized how robotic he sounded. Then he let his mind travel down a path that was completely unnecessary at the time.

‘Why do I sound so robotic?’ He thought ‘Is it because I know that nobody really cares about any of this?’

How can you say that they don’t actually care? If they actually didn’t care then they wouldn’t be here listening. I mean, you care about their presentations right?’

'Yes I do, but I’m sure their presentations are a lot more interesting than mine, so far they have been.'

He gave his mind a little time to think, just enough time to snap back into reality, “I grew up in Grass Valley my entire life, however being raised as a hick, I have come to appreciate travel a lot, and recently returned from a year in Italy” He started to feel a little better about his speech. Partly because his experience in Italy was his pride and joy, and partly because the quick conversation in his mind boosted his confidence in some small way. “After living in Italy for ten months, I am now fluent in the Italian language.” He hoped that the class found this somewhat entertaining, but was too nervous to listen or look for any reaction. After mentioning the Italian language, his mind switched against his will, into Italian mode. Sometimes if he dwelled on the Italian language too long, he would begin to think in Italian, thus hindering his ability to speak in English. ‘Oh merda, questa e’ la corpa tua. Dovevi pensare in italiano. Ma sei un stupido scimmia.’ He tried to change back into English, he tried to continue his presentation normally without looking like a total goof. It didn’t work, “Um, the uh, food in Italy, is uh… well, it’s definitely my favorite out of uh, all the world food I know” He knew how horrible he looked in front of the class, he could see in their faces the confusion that they all had. He squinted his eyes and concentrated, ‘Inglese, inglese, Inglish, english, english.’ It was back, he could once again correspond his thoughts, with his mouth. “I am hoping that my ability to speak Italian will assist me in some way throughout life” he was being very careful to continue thinking in English, “It is definitely one of my passions to travel and with that usually comes a passion to be able to communicate” He laughed at himself on the inside because he knew that his modes of communication were being presented as somewhat lacking. He decided to drop the Italian subject and move on to something else, “On the sheet I read that I was assigned to give three words that my enemies would call me. First, if I have enemies, I don’t plan on giving them enough time to call me names”. He didn’t mean this in a violent sense, but he was afraid that he sounded like a jock trying to impress girls, which was certainly not his goal. He stumbled over his words as he tried to steer the class’ thoughts in a different direction. “In the sense that I keep my distance, not like, that I punch them or something, that would be, unnecessary.” Once again, he found himself looking like a total goof. In an attempt to make him look a little more “interesting” or “eclectic” he decided to describe what he wanted to do for a living. “For a career, I have always been interested in Acting or Theater, but at the same time I realize that I would be poorer than dirt, so at the same time I’m interested in psychology. It’s a strange mix, but I’m a strange person.” After he heard himself say something so utterly awkward, he felt like banging his head multiple times on the podium that stood in front of him. He could see his peers shifting in their seats after such an awkward statement, followed by an awkward silence. He decided to finish this presentation that he was so unprepared for with an awkward “thank you”.

As he walked back to his seat he heard the class clapping for him and felt a slight vibration on his shoe. He glanced down and saw a brown string whipping around by his feet. He had untied his shoe on the way back to his seat. He wondered if there was anything else that could have gone wrong with his presentation…. And he remembered that he had forgotten one of the statements, but then realized that his entire presentation had answered it for him. The statement that he forgot was “I’m at my worst when…”