There is no official wooden podium that one would expect to be present for a formal presentation. Instead, there is a music stand; black, plastic, and creating a sturdy wall between my upper body and the rest of the classroom. Behind it, I feel protected. I glance to my right and see the title slide of my presentation projected onto the white screen of the board. I double-check the words I typed to make sure I didn’t embarrassingly misspell my name or the title of the topic I was presenting. I look back at the teacher, and she, too, like me, is waiting.

     “We’re waiting for Alice to return from the restroom,” says my teacher to some students who are wondering why I am standing at the front of the room staring around instead of speaking. I smile at them to convey that I too am in a similar state of confusion; they understand. I glance at the door: No Alice.

I see that my hands are shaking as I hold my speech outline. I force my hand to steady, and as I focus on that task, my racecar heartbeat starts to lose speed. Maybe this speech will be different.

     Victoria looks me over and whispers something into the ears of the boy next to her. His response: an agreeing smirk. I look over them and ignore their obvious gossip about me, but I can’t help remembering my pitiful gaffes during my presentations from last year. The most recent one was the group presentation on the Dutch. The number of times I kicked the brass trashcan behind me evades me, but I think it must have been around three. I remember the way my voice quivered and how I was the only one who needed to bring a sheet of paper with the words I needed to say written down in front of me. I remember the way each one of my group members before and after me effortlessly and suavely presented their information while I stumbled over sentences like I was walking on broken glass. “And th-this is how the D-Dutch traveled there b-because of g-good soil,” I croak out. I sound like someone who is about to cry, and my voice is like a clock ticking from one vocal pitch to the other.
     While I was fidgeting around from nervousness before my turn, I kicked the trashcan behind me. “B-I-I-I-N-G”, it rang out. The girl beside me opened her eyes really wide and made that half-OMG and half-smile face. I turned back and looked in the trashcan. Its empty, hollow sound confirmed its emptiness. The green paint was chipping from it thick rim as if the Statue of Liberty had transformed into the trashcan.

     Rewind a few days back when my old teacher was explaining the presentation aspect of the Dutch project. “Remember to speak loudly. Effective communication is such a big aspect of presentations…” he droned on. I immediately knew he was talking specifically to me, and my resulting self-consciousness made it difficult for me to pay attention to what he said after that. The girl in front of me had turned around to stare at me. She was one of those people who liked to think with their faces. Anytime someone was describing a scenario, she would force herself to relate by looking around to find the person that best fit that situation’s description, be herself or another kid. She wasn’t the only one.

     Oh, when will I stop walking on glass? Alice walks in and takes her seat. The teacher gestures for me to start. I force myself to place all of those school presentations that ended in disasters behind me. Now is my chance. “No more broken glass”, I tell myself.

     For the last time, I look around at my classmates. The class is thankfully small in size. Once again, my racing heart slows down and I regain composure. My voice comes out, the loudest it has ever been in that class, and it does not shake.

     “Thank you for listening,” I say with a forced smile, and the traditional applause drowns out my hurried footsteps back to my seat. My friend beside me whispers, “Good job.” My reply: another tight smile and a strained thank-you. Deep down, I know that the only reason he said good job was from watching me execute a job so terribly that it required pity.

     After speaking, I give myself a C for the introduction; it was good, but it could have been better had I maintained eye contact one hundred percent while saying it. The body of my speech was where I had trouble. My voice started to give toward the end, and by the conclusion, I was just reading off of my paper. All eye contact with my classmates and teacher was lost. My words were all jumbled, as if I slid the off of my outline and into a food processor. I give myself an F- for the last quarter of the speech.

 However, when I return home, I find myself in a bipolar mix of happiness and depression. I find it odd; usually after every presentation I give, I feel despondent. I feel the rays of happiness as strongly as I feel my hands sweeping up the shards of broken glass. While I have not collected every piece, I am on my way to a friction-free path. My war with stage fright is not over yet, and I still dream of the day I will be sliding on ice, not walking on broken glass.