Public Speaking Speech

Proverb: Look before you leap

I chose to spend the last few weeks of my last summer in Los Angeles before leaving for college on a road-trip with my four best friends. We started our journey on the west coast and worked as far East as Indianapolis. With stops in Colorado and Arizona along the way, we camped and stayed in motels and even stayed a few nights with my grandma in St. Louis. By far the most exhilarating stop that we made was in Boulder, Colorado where the brave members of the caravan jumped out of an airplane. I always had interest in going skydiving but never actually thought that I would have the opportunity to do so. When presented with the realistic idea I figured why not do it, what do I have to lose?

So my two other brave friends and I showed up for our skydiving appointment and that's when my fear finally started to kick in. We filled out a ton of paper work and once we had signed our lives away we began the preparations for the jump.

We put on our jumpsuits and we were introduced to our instructors. My instructor looked incredibly scary. He was tall, wore huge sun glasses that covered his face, and his pony-tail and facial hair needed more grooming than my dogs. Not really fitting the stereotype of the guy that you trust with your life.

We went over the instructions for the takeoff but he didn't say one word about the instructions for the actual skydiving itself.

As we got up to the target altitude where the launch takes place he looked at me and said “its time” so he strapped me onto his harness and we waddled over awkwardly to the opening in the rear of the airplane.

All the anticipation and thoughts that had been going through my head for the past hour were now at their peak. Just a few feet from the door he started to count to 5 and then we were going to exit the plane.