My Friend, the Toastmaster

As some of you know, I am a part of Toastmasters International. I've actually been a part of Toastmasters for about 2 years on and off. I think when I first started back in 2005, I was already pretty good and I'm not sure I've challenged myself to do different things with my speeches in a while. In any case, in all the time I've been a part of Toastmasters, I never really got a chance to compete. I won my club's contest when I was part of a university club but couldn't make it out to the next contest (where the winners of different clubs compete) because I had to pick my Mom up from the airport.

This time it would be different. Up against, one other club member, I won the speech contest and moved on to the Area club contest where I would compete with other club winners in my area. Though nerve wracking, it was a good experience, especially since the contest was a humorous speech contest.

I think luck was on my side that day: I was up against one other person again and managed to eke out a win. The win meant that I would move on to the Division contest (and if I won that, I would move on to the District, the final one I believe).

Imagine an early Saturday morning. You just came back to Edmonton from Calgary the night before on a long bus ride home and now you have to give a speech against other winners from the Area contests.

This is what happened:




and here is my speech as I wrote it out (though probably different than when I actually said it out loud).

My Friend, the Toastmaster

Thank you mr. toastmaster, fellow dawnbreakers, most welcome guests and honored judges.

Today, I want to talk about a good friend of mine, a fellow Toastmaster. We have been friends for a few years and he is probably in his 30's now. Some would say that he's middle aged. Others may disagree. I only bring up the age to highlight the fact that he's been a Toastmaster now for almost all his life.

What I wanted to share with you today are some of the traits my good friend has as a Toastmaster. Perhaps these are traits that some of you may already have or are looking to gain. Some of his many great qualities that I will be talking about today include his use of pauses and silence, his passion or heat for being a Toastmaster and his obsession with toasts.

First, let me talk about his use of pauses and silence.

My friend says very little in his day to day life but that doesn't mean that the words that he does say do not carry a lot of weight. He doesn't say much but when he does say something, it is meaningful, relevant, profound and he says things with authority -- like a small bell in a large room. People often listen to his eerie speeches full of pauses and silence and when he finally speaks up, people are happy, they are excited. They even stand up after they have heard his words of wisdom. You may have heard the quote "a watched pot never boils". By his silent speeches alone, he has coined the phrase "a watched Toastmaster never toasts".

You might mistake this as a lack of passion or heat for being a Toastmaster. Make no mistake about it though, he has a burning desire to be the best Toastmaster there is.

His passion has often been described as a flame that would consume anything and everything if not kept in check. Luckily for us, he keeps it in check. As an example of how he keeps his heat in check, every single time I have seen him make a toast, he always ends at either a minute, a minute and a half or two minutes. You can be sure that when he finishes, it is never over the time limit. In fact, he is so consistent and so precise, some even think that he is a machine. Due to his punctuality and his profound toasts, he is often requested by friends to make toasts in their honor.

That leads me to his third characteristic: his obsession with toasts.

A toast as you know, is a drink and small tribute in honor of a person. Like I said, he is often requested by friends to make toasts in their honor. By now, you must realize that all he seems to do is make toasts - why the obsession with toasts, I do not know. His toasts can range from light toasts that are crisp and to the point to dark toasts that are sometimes difficult to swallow. As an example of his obsession with toasts, I have seen him make 2, 3 even 4 toasts, simultaneously to honor 4 different people. Whatever the occasion, he can make the right toast.

Let me now end by showing you a picture of my friend, the Toastmaster. Although he is quite shy, I managed to snap a picture while he wasn't quite plugged into the things around him. I think that many of you may recognize him as he is quite famous for his toasts. As I show you a picture of my friend, I will conclude by reiterating many of the points I have made so far.

- He's been a toastmaster for almost all his life.
- His great qualities include his use of pauses and silence, his passion or heat for being a Toastmaster and his obsession with toasts
- He says things with authority, like a small bell in a silent room
- He coined the phrase, a watched Toastmaster never toasts
- He is so consistent, so precise, some people think he is a machine.
- He has an obsession with toasts
- His toasts range from light toasts that are crisp and to the point to dark toasts that are difficult to swallow
- As an example of his obsession with toasts, I have seen him make 2, 3 even 4 toasts simultaneously to honor 4 different people.

Fellow dawnbreakers, most welcome guests, my friend, the Toastmaster.

Back to you Mr. Toastmaster.

I didn't win that day but it was definitely one of my better speeches I have given.

Some tips on adjusting to a new location

I have to first say that my blog is slowly shifting towards new topics. I had originally written this blog with a mathematical focus in mind but as I slowly entered the work force and began professional life, I have seen a lot of value documenting some of my struggles. In fact, because I graduated somewhat sooner than most of my friends, I find myself being somewhat of an expert on the job search, a lot of strategies which I used during my own job search a few months ago. In any case, I hope that I'll be able to more consistently write posts on mathematics that I see in the world but for now, these recent posts are some that I felt like documenting.

Since the move to Edmonton, I have been really homesick. In fact, it even culminated in flying back home one weekend just to see friends and family that I haven't seen in a few weeks. Now that I'm back though, I don't feel as homesick as before and there's really a couple reasons why. This post is going to explore some of those reasons:

1. Coworkers

One source of comaderie I get is from my coworkers. This is an obvious place to create friendships because you see your coworkers every day. In fact, I read that you will like your job more if you make a friend at work. It's not that I need a motivation to like my job more, rather, it is that extra something to make you enjoy going to work and it may even increase your opportunity to do things together after work or on the weekend.

Of course, the big problem with working at the Alberta Law Libraries is every coworker is female and they all have families and established lives. As opposed to a university setting where people are around my age, have similar interests and are at the same place in their lives (just beginning their professional careers and don't have families to go home to), I'm at a place where my coworkers all have families and they really don't have time to 'hang out'. It's something unfortunate that I didn't really think of when taking the job but certainly not a deal breaker; I really would have liked to have coworkers around my age and at the same place in their lives.

Despite all this, my culinary interests and age fit right in with the coworkers I have. I don't think I'm as good as I think I am and I think there is some bias but I do think that all the things I cook taste really good (yes, probably bias). This interest in food has definitely led to some interesting conversations around the office.

I think it's funny that my age fits right into the conversations we have: as I mentioned, most of my coworkers have families and a lot of their children are around my age. Often times, they'll make some statement about the youths of that age and I sit there, almost amused, at the observations they make.

2. Sports

This is a two in one combo - it's a great way of keeping fit and also meeting new people. For example, the University of Alberta has a great selection of sport clubs to be a part of. You really have to dig around for information yourself if you want to find the clubs that you can participate in. Sometimes even after finding all the necessary information, you don't have the right equipment to play with (my racquet is back in Van). I suppose I should have brought it with me or even brought it over the time I went back to Van but I just totally forgot.

I do think however, this is a really good option for the two reasons above - it also helps that there is a University club because it is more than likely that the people playing there will be around your age (though they may not be at the same place in their lives with work).

3. Professional Organizations

During my job search, I talked about how important it was to network with your contacts and find jobs through your network. Not only are a lot of the jobs not usually posted on sites like indeed or simplyhired, but recruiters will often rely on referrals from coworkers or trusted people to hire people for the job.

I was fortunate enough to be a part of the Toastmasters International Organization when I was in Vancouver and when I moved over to Edmonton, I immediately thought of joining a Toastmaster club. Not only would it be a chance to meet some new people, but it would be a good chance to practice my public speaking and leadership skills. Just doing a google search on Toastmasters and Edmonton brought up numerous groups and I, wanting to be more efficient with my time, decided to join one at 7 in the morning before work. Needless to say, the days I go to Toastmasters are very long days. This seemed to be the most successful way of meeting people because the first time I went, I said that I was interested in networking and a fellow Toastmaster invited me out to a networking event on that same day. I was late to the networking event, plus my networking skills aren't that great but I did get to meet a few people there and had some really good conversations.

As an aside, I was also thinking about joining a professional product management organization - I think that that is what I will be doing eventually in the future.

4. Meetup!

I remember after reading through many tech articles, reading about a site called Meetup but I never gave it much thought because I was in Vancouver at the time and had plenty of things to do. One day, a coworker no less, suggested to me that someone she knew who was new to Edmonton had looked online and found a group of other people who were 'New to Edmonton'. It was a good way of meeting others with similar interests (in this case, everyone was new to Edmonton). She sent me a link to the meetup.com site and I checked out all the meetups in Edmonton. Some look quite interesting, in fact, so interesting that I have joined the Chinese and Japanese group. So far, I haven't been to any of these meetups but I know that once I get into these meetups and become a regular member, I will at least have some sort of base that I can connect to.

These are just a few of the strategies you can use to meet new people and to try to establish a new base of friends to hang out with. Between work, Toastmasters, working out several times a week and trying to figure out which meetups to go to, you can tell I've been busy.

Have you moved to somewhere new? How did you cope and adjusted to it? How did you meet new people?