每天一小段英语（16）（大结局Ⅰ）

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And as I made my way through the talk, disaster never struck. I made it through to the end without any major problems.

VICTORY.

When I was done, I sat in a seat they had reserved for me, blacked out, and watched the next series of talks. Immense relief.

The week then turned from what I had openly declared to be the worst week of my life into the best possible shit ever. I never knew much about the TED conference before, but it’s

very, very fun

. It’s like a little luxury playland where super fancy people come to relax and watch 70

intensely

stressed-out, less fancy people get on stage, one by one, and say something interesting. And you know when you’re in a store and there’s some incredibly expensive package of high-end beef jerky or some $9 peanut butter cups by some weeping Brooklyn brand or some pixie bottle of juice that amounts to $6/sip and you don’t buy those things cause who has the nerve to actually live like that? Well all that shit is

everywhere

on these

racks

as you walk around TED, and it’s all

free

. I was chewing for 93% of my waking time the rest of the week.

I’d head into the theater in the morning, some ultra-organic, hyper-cleansing coconut chips in one hand, some wheatgrass extract thing in the other, a thermos full of coffee that took nine minutes for some guy to make using a bunch of test tubes resting in the pocket of the hoodie I wore all week because once your talk is done, literally nothing in the world matters anymore—and I’d plant myself in a seat in the theater and think, “I’m ready, speakers, for you to

entertain and educate me

. Let’s begin!”

There’s only one stage and only one talk going on at a time, and that talk, in addition to happening live in the theater, is beamed through the entire conference center, which is full of screens and speakers. So sometimes, instead of watching talks in the theater, I’d watch in one of the many cozy simulcast viewing areas—maybe while lying on one of the hundreds of beanbags. Maybe while stretched out on grass under a tree.

Or maybe in a

plastic ball pit

.

Glorious.

Then it ended and I went home and everything costs money again and I have to do stuff again. Upsetting.

Anyway, that was my TED experience. To all those scared public speakers out there, I’d just say: the fear and dread of public speaking is almost always much worse than the actual experience of doing it. Everyone is just as uncomfortable with it as you are, and if you just put in a good amount of preparation, it almost always ends up going just fine. And then you’ll be really happy you went through all the hell leading up to it. So go for it.

整个演讲从头到尾都没出什么大问题。

成功了。

讲完后，我坐在给我留的座位上看接下来的演讲。这真是极大的安慰。

上周是我这辈子最惨的一周，而这周正好相反。我以前还不知道TED这么有意思。它就像一个小型豪华游乐园，极富想象力的人来放松地看压力过大而又没什么想象力的人一个接一个在舞台上说有趣的东西。在商店里没人有勇气买昂贵的牛肉干、9美元的布鲁克林杂牌花生酱、PIXIE机做的6美元一小口的饮料。在TED的货架上，这些东西全部免费。我93%的时间都在享用。

早上我去剧场，一手拿着有机干净的椰子薯片，一手拿着小麦提取的食品，连帽衫兜里放一保温瓶的热咖啡——几个服务员用一些试管似的东西九分钟才做出来的。我坐在座位里想：我准备好了，演讲者们，你们来招待我，给我讲吧。开始！

一次只能有一个人演讲，除去在剧场的现场演讲，整个会议中心都被光笼罩——全是大屏幕和演讲者。所以有的时候我更喜欢惬意地躺在几百个沙发这里看转播，有时候也出去外面树下的草地上看。

也有可能是塑料球里。

这真是极好的。

会议结束我走回家，一切又开始需要花钱了，而且又要忙起来了。唉。

不管怎样，这是我的TED经历。对于害怕公共演讲的人我想说，对公共演讲的恐惧和担心，实际演讲的时候一般感觉不到。每个人都会和你一样有这种不安，只要你准备好，一切都会好起来的。演讲全程你都会感到开心。所以勇敢地去讲吧。

命运号角

每日一词
peril
n. 危险；冒险
vt. 危及；置…于险境

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stretch out
v. 伸出；伸直四肢

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结尾作者的一段话
As for my talk, TED rolls them out throughout the year, so I don’t yet know when it’ll be posted online, but when it is, I’ll send the link out to the email list.
___________
If you’d like to support Wait But Why, you can here.
Public speaking is only one of life’s great perils. Three others to watch out for:
The Great Perils of Social Interaction
11 Awkward Things About Email
Why You Secretly Hate Bars
One other note: I’m trying an experiment next week called Mini Week, where I’ll be writing and posting a new mini post each day of the week (Monday – Friday).

sk红酒杯

miaomiao

牛B，多谢分享