Nerves suck.

I could feel my heart beating outside of my chest. The ribs were
tensing, and my mind swirling, constantly repeating my speech. "Picture
this..." I would say, reciting my speech once again. Repetition was my
only ally, and I clung to it hopelessly. I closed my eyes, thinking to
myself, "this is it, I'm going to have this over with." Every
possibility of what could go wrong was wound around my chest, clenching
it tighter and tighter. My breath was fast and uneven, and worried
faces floated around me. But it was that speech, that damned speech,
that kept running through my head like a roundtrip subway, flying by at
top speed.

I heard a tiny click behind me, the squeaking of a door, and my breath
stopped. My eyes flashed open, and I turned slowly, looking into a pair
of deep blue eyes. "Are you Karen?" He said, his eyes digging deeper
into my skull. A genuine smile spread across his face, and straight
line of crystal white teeth peering in my direction. I swallowed,
nodded, and held out my hand.

"That's me!" I said in fained cheerfulness. I gripped his hand firmly,
hand still as could be, but my mind was moving faster now, as if a
train was about to come off its tracks. For a moment I seriously feared
for my health. My lungs seemed to condense to the size of a marble, and
I struggled to breath in, clasping onto the little bit of oxygen. My
eyes and body seemed calm, collected, even confident, but my insides
were flying in every which way, my stomach doing gymnastics.

I strode in, balancing daintly on the heels of my stately black pumps.
A young blonde woman smiled from across the room, signaling for me to
follow. I smiled weakly, still clinging to my composure. The room spun,
and I walked light headed to the front of the classroom. For a moment,
I felt safe and calm while looking at the pictures and posters brightly
colouring the dull yellow walls. I breathed heavily, blinking slowly.
The judge took his seat, ajusted his papers slightly, and looked up at
me, still beaming. "Happy bastard." I said inside my head, a smile
still stetched across my face.

"OK, I'm going to hold up a sign when you have one minute left on your
speech, then a thirty second sign when you have thirty seconds to go.
Promptly after you'll take a seat over there," he pointed to a seat in
the corner with a notecard, a pencil, and a slip of typed paper sitting
on the desk, "to finish your impromtu speech." I nodded, my smile
diminishing a bit. My heart seemed had stopped completely, and I had
used up all of the rest of the oxygen in my lungs. Now, it thought, I
really WILL die.

Ten minutes later, and two speeches down, I walked out of the room,
smiling, confident, calm, collected. The lungs were once again filled
with air, my head no longer spinning, and my vision no longer a long
tunnel. Life, it seemed, had become a bit brighter and easier. I
scolded myself silently for calling that nice gentlemen a
bastard.

*Yes, this is a true story. Any one who is in Academic Decathlon would
totally understand.*