ndrosen | Entries tagged with toastmasters

A Patent Office employee named Len Tran joined USPTO Toastmasters a couple of years ago, and demonstrated excellence in public speaking. I competed against him in the club contest a few months ago, but he won. And did I mention that he’s an author? He went on to win the area level and division level speaking contests, and will compete at the District level. I will not be surprised if he wins again, and competes at the world championship level; he might even become World Champion of Public Speaking, either this year, or in a future year, and I will be able to say that I knew him when.

At Thursday’s meeting of USPTO Toastmasters, a member who joined relatively recently gave an icebreaker speech. He is originally from Ethiopia, and described how his father had won a place in the green card lottery, and brought him (eighteen years old at the time) to America with him, leaving his wife and the other children, since his father had been able to scrape up enough money for only one family member besides himself.

He, the speaker, had worked full time while studying at Northern Virginia Community College, and then managed to attend George Mason University. It had been hard, but he finally managed to bring his family to the United States, and went on to a career at the Patent and Trademark Office. We were all impressed by his speech, and his striving to live the American Dream, and help his family.

I have already heard accounts from two other people of how they had the good fortune to win the green card lottery, and come to America. One is from Romania, has been active in USPTO Toastmasters for years, and has recently risen to become a supervisory patent examiner; the other was from one of the south Asian countries, and gave a speech a few years ago, but isn’t currently active in Toastmasters, so far as I know.

Donald Trump, who has echoed Hitler by describing immigrants as “poisoning the blood of our people”, has characterized those who enter via the green card lottery as “the worst of the worst.” I regard the three Americans by choice I know who won places by such chance as better Americans than Trump the insurrectionist.

I remember a cartoon from the Clinton Administration, in which a youthful Bill Clinton was seen undergoing brain surgery, wit( the mordant caption, “Young Bill Clinton prepared for a political career by having his sense of same surgically removed.”

I wonder whether Donald Trump ever had a sense of shame to evulse.

USPTO Toastmasters wanted someone to give a speech at their January second meeting, so I stepped up. I wasn’t bursting with ideas, and didn’t want to give yet another Georgist speech, but, the night before the meeting, I thought of a topic: “Happy Birthday, Isaac Asimov!” Came the meeting, and I delivered the speech.

I also participated in Table Topics, in which people are called on to give short, extemporaneous speeches. Normally, one of the main speakers of the day wouldn’t do that, but since we had a sparsely attended meeting, the Table Topics master invited everyone to participate, so I did, and selected “Alphabet Soup” as my prompt. That turned out to be a challenge to give a brief speech in which the first word of the first sentence began with an A, the second sentence began with a B, etc., and I was invited to talk about a news item or online article which I had read.

I chose to speak about the Slate quiz Thursday morning, in which the topic was science. I didn’t do too well, missing several questions, and scoring above average, and in the top fifty, but not the top ten. I pointed out that someone with a Ph.D. in Materials would not necessarily know the answer to a question in biochemistry.

Later, the general evaluator of the meeting referred to my Table Topics speech, and said that at A USPTO Toastmasters meeting, I was the smartest guy in the room, but admitted to not being the smartest guy in any room anywhere.

After donating blood this morning, I went back to my office, did some regular work, and then attended a special meeting of USPTO Toastmasters, dedicated to Tall Tales. Yesterday, or possibly the day before, I had signed up for a meeting role, and one thing we do in Toastmasters is to evaluate each other’s speeches, saying what was done well, and what could be improved. Only one person was signed up to give a full speech, and one had signed up to evaluate the first speaker; I chose to be second evaluator, and emailed the club president and a couple of other people that, in accordance with the spirit of the occasion, I would evaluate the second speech whether or not there was one.

Came the day, and I evaluated the funeral oration delivered by our exceptionally distinguished guest, Pericles son of Xanthippos. I said that the many club members who were fluent in Ancient Greek would surely agree that Pericles’ actual speech was even better than the version given in Thucydides’ history, and praised the sentiments set forth, although I did have some criticisms of Athens’s imperfect democracy, which did not extend isonomy to slaves or women.

One member of the club commented that there was a lot of history, and she was a bit at sea. What, doesn’t everyone read Thucydides’ history of the Peloponnesian War as a teenager in his father’s study?

Despite the blood donation, for which I’m allowed to write off four hours, the Toastmasters meeting, and another staff meeting, I did put in multiple hours of actual examining today. Rest easy, taxpayers.

On Thursday, USPTO Toastmasters held a special meeting to celebrate its fifty-fifth anniversary. We had samosas, and a half-sheet cake (eggless with mango). The newly elected officers were inducted, including myself; I will be serving as club treasurer once again. This was a hybrid meeting, with some of us actually gathered in a room in Knox Building at the Carlyle headquarters; others, working from home or at other branches of the Patent and Trademark Office, attended remotely.

Last week, the officers of USPTO Toastmasters were pleading for someone to speak this week, so I signed up, and emailed that I would come up with a topic later. I gave a well-received speech yesterday about The Tale of Genji, and how it was by some reckonings the world’s first psychological novel. I began by saying that human beings of every culture have been telling stories at least since we became fully human, and perhaps longer than that, but that not every form of literature goes back to time immemorial. I pointed out that science fiction, strictly defined, did not exist before Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, and arguably not until some time later, although there had been, for example, tales of traveling to the Moon by totally unworkable methods, showing that almost everything builds on some kind of predecessor.

Then I talked about the psychological novel; Lady Murasaki Shikibu was not the first author to describe a character’s feelings, and I mentioned reading a translation of an extract from (I think) Apollonios’ rescension of “Jason and the Argonauts,” describing Medea’s feelings as she becomes infatuated with Jason. The Tale of Genji carried its descriptions of people’s interior lives further than had been done before, however. Genji and his fellow courtiers are esthetes who express themselves obliquely in poems, and whose actual feelings, from experiencing a garden, a wilderness, or an interaction with another person are set forth subtly and in some detail. I gave a very brief summary of the book, a biography of a fictional lord at the Heian court, from before his birth to the lives of his descendants after his death. I said a few other things as well, such as that Genji was lucky that there was no Me Too movement in Heian-kyo, but that would have been very un-Japanese.

All in all, my rather hastily prepared speech went pretty well.

I gave a Toastmasters speech Thursday, “A Few Words on Saint Patrick,” which was well received. I hope to find time to post the speech.

On Wednesday, I received an appeal for funds from the Trumpublican National Committee, including a bogus poll with a set of trick questions. If this were a court of law, I would say, “Objection, Your Honor! Assumes facts not in evidence.” As is, I’m wondering whether I should just recycle the paper, or spend a stamp to send it back to the Trumpanzees with a note. Will someone waste a minute looking for a check? Feel free to leave your advice in the Comments.

Thursday’s USPTO Toastmasters meeting was an open house; members were encouraged to invite guests, and we had as special guests several high officials at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. I’m not naming names because, although I don’t think there’s anything that needs to be concealed here, I did not receive permission from those people to use their names in my weblog. Three special guests made brief speeches, and several regular Toastmasters members also spoke or participated.

Several people who attended as guests are interested in becoming members, and I’m involved as Treasurer, telling them just how much to pay, and how to fill out the membership form, and then paying Toastmasters International out of the money the club receives from its members.

On Thursday, I participated in a USPTO Toastmasters club-level contest, giving a speech on “The Forgotten Remedy.” The other contestant won, and will represent us at the Area contest.

Later in the day, I had the opportunity to see a beautiful sunset as I walked a few blocks west for exercise, and to visit the drugstore.

At Thursday’s USPTO Toastmasters meeting, conducted remotely, I was Table Topics master, posing questions to people who gave short speeches. I prepared six prompts, and ranked them from hardest (1) to easiest (6). I didn’t expect people to be able to answer the hardest two, but they would be an exercise in how to talk about something when unable to give a straight answer.

Mr. M—, who chose (1), handled it cleverly. The assignment was, “Compare and contrast these two centuries-old works which arguably qualify as novels: the Genji Monogatari and the Laxdolla Saga.” He regretted that he had not been able to hear my question because of all the noisy cicadas outside his home, and proceeded with something else.

At the virtual USPTO Toastmasters meeting Thursday, I gave a “Connect with Storytelling” speech about Bodhvar Bjarki and Hjalti, two warriors at the court of King Hrólf Kraki. The mighty warrior Bjarki arrives from Norway, befriends the timid servant boy later to be known as Hjalti, drags the boy out with him when he goes to meet and slay a dragon which has been raiding the king’s cattle, and feeds him the dragon’s heart, from which he gains strength and courage. Later, the two of them, together with Hrólf himself and other warriors, fight to the death when Hrolf’s half sister Skuld and her husband Hjorvardh lead a host against their overlord.

The tale seemed to make a good impression on the audience, although it might have been more impressive in person, if I had not been holding a telephone to deliver the speech. I first read a version of Hrólf Kraki’s Saga as a child, and later, as an adult, read the great Poul Anderson’s version.

I attended the Area 63 and 64 contests Thursday evening (the two Areas had separate contests, but before one audience in the Clara Barton Auditorium, hosted by USPTO Toastmasters). My Humorous Speech did get some laughs, but the judges evidently rated a competitor’s speech more highly, so he will go on to represent the Area at the Division level contest.

On Thursday, October 3, I participated in the Humorous Speaking contest of USPTO Toastmasters, and placed second with my speech, “We Have to Laugh or Cry.” Another member won with his speech, “My Second Job,” referring to his being a husband and father. Due to his second job, he won’t be going to the Area contest on Thursday evening, so in three days, I will represent our club at the contest.

Last week, I won the International Speech Contest and the Speech Evaluation Contest at USPTO Toastmasters. This evening, I showed up as club champion, and competed against the representatives of other clubs at the area level (we're Area 63 of a particular division of District 27). I didn't win, but I did take second place in both the Evaluation Contest, where I evaluated the speech of a model speaker, and the International Speech Contest, where I delivered my own speech on "Forgotten Wisdom."

At the meeting of USPTO Toastmasters on Thursday, I was the Grammarian, and it was my job to listen for grammatical errors, and for especially good uses of grammar. Early in the meeting, I stood up and told people what I would do, but I did so in German, saying that I had studied grammar in four languages (I didn't say that I could actually speak four languages). I warned people that I would listen, and that I would complain about any errors. This created some amusement, and one member had me repeat my little speech in English. Someone asked whether I had been speaking Russian, and I said that it had been German.

I competed in Table Topics at the area level (one step up from the club level). First, the sergeant-at-arms took me to another room while the other contestant gave a brief speech in response to the question they asked her. Then he brought me back into the first room, and the Contest Master asked me a question. My answer drew laughter, and seemed to please people, and I thought that I had won, but when the results were announced (after the Humorous Speech contest, which followed the Table Topics contest), I learned that I had come in second, and the other contestant would go on to the division contest.

Talking to someone, I heard that while I had gone for the funny bone, my competitor had gone for the heart. Well, then, congratulations to her. Another member of USPTO Toastmasters gave the sole Humorous Speech, his only rival having had a family emergency, so he will move up to the division level contest, and just might go further.