The Radium Girls

Below is another Toastmasters speech I gave – just last night, actually! It was inspired by a book I read recently, called The Radium Girls; The Dark Story of America’s Shining Women, by Kate Moore. I’d known of the Radium Girls before, but I’d always been curious to know more. Her book is a very […]

Touchy Feet

My next toastmaster speech project is supposed to be a “touching speech,” It’s practicing how to convey emotion through storytelling. Instead of just saying “Billy felt sad because he wasn’t invited to Joey’s birthday party”, you’d tell the story of Billy watching his friends pass by on their way to Joey’s party and wondering why […]

A Tale of Two Squirrels

It’s been a while since I’ve shared a Toastmaster speech. Last night I gave speech #3 from the Advanced Communicator Series – Storytelling. The project was to tell a story with a moral. The examples they gave were The Tortoise and the Hare and another one about mice and a cat. I struggled to think […]

Toastmaster Speech #10 – Go Play Outside

Last night I gave my 10th and final speech in the Toastmaster Competent Communicator book. It was an inspirational speech and had to be between 8-10 minutes long. I really struggled with this one. I think I felt intimidated by the idea of speaking for 8 minutes straight without notes. The previous speeches were all […]

Toastmaster Speech – Minimalism – Paring Down to Get More Out of Life

This is the text of the minimalism speech I gave at a Toastmasters meeting in April. I got a lot of good feedback, mostly of people who agreed that they wanted to part with a lot of their crap. A couple of guys insisted that as Connecticut Yankees, they could not part with their stuff […]

My Happy Place

After a good month of not doing any Zentangles, I finally spent some time over the weekend making a couple. Usually I just draw them in black ink and then use a pencil to shade and add some depth, but I decided to experiment with color again. I love color, but sometimes I find it […]

It’s Only Tuesday

I’m not one to wish the days away, but going back to a full work week after two nice, long holiday weekends is rough. Last night I gave my 6th Toastmaster speech. I might be starting to get the hang of it. I spent a ton of time preparing a PowerPoint presentation to accompany my speech, […]

Two Years!

Today is EEC Chick’s Two-Year Anniversary! What a long, strange trip it’s been. Ok, not really. I have yet to exceed 100 posts. That’s rather sad. I had envisioned this blog becoming the next Dooce, except with less poop references. It’s probably a good thing I haven’t gone viral though – I don’t know if […]

Toastmaster Speech #4

Last night I gave my fourth speech at Toastmasters. As usual, I waited until the last possible moment to write the speech (guess how I spent my 4th of July?) I was editing it up until an hour before I had to go live. I even had to use my notes because I was afraid I […]

Tribute to the Cavalier

I participate in my local Toastmaster’s club. Toastmasters is an international organization that helps people develop speaking and leadership skills. Here is the latest speech I gave, shortly after I bought my new car. Recently, I bought a new car and while this is a good thing, I couldn’t help but feel a little sad in saying […]