I had my first foray into making acquaintances on the key by going to a tai chi class at the Community Center. A bust on two fronts. The other students were 3 elderly (and that term is getting closer and closer) women, all snowbirds about to fly north. The teacher was Ian, a young man who evidently was drafted at the previous class since he knows more that the other students. We did some warm ups, then followed a DVD of some form steps. Not what I want. Ian is also looking for a class that does the Qi Jong form. I will continue my search. And I will get my DVD player out of storage because I've found the DVD's my former teacher gave me. I may have to have a class of 1 in my living room.
Later I rode the bus to town and attended Brickell Toastmasters, a big group of professionals. All three speakers did well, the evaluators supportive, and I won Table Topics*! I liked that the members are of a range of ethnicities. Of course they are all younger than I, with one man speaking about his recent 32nd birthday and how he's starting to feel old. Of course I used that in my Table Topics. I will come back, but next time I'll wear sneakers rather that walking the mile from the bus stop in heels.
*Toastmaster meetings have three parts: prepared speeches, evaluations of those speeches, and Table Topics, in which the topic master throws out a question, then asks someone to speak to that for 1 to 2 minutes. The goal is to speak coherently. The speaker can answer the question or go off on a different track, just make it to the 1-minute mark and not run over 2 1/2 minutes. Always seems easy when you're sitting down and not the person asked. My previous club meets in a Denny's, and when a new person just can't make it to the time limit, we tell them to read the menu aloud. Anything to be able to go 60 seconds.
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