My First TEDx Event

...I walked up on the stage, the spot lights glaring at me, my friends, family, anxiously waiting for me to begin, people experts in their fields looking at me as if they were saying "What journey could an 11th grade student possibly have to tell?"...

The microphone, check. Hair, check. Piano at the right place, check. Sheet music, check. Confidence, check.

I will never forget last night, the night of February 27th, 2013. It was my first TEDx conference, and even my first experience at public speaking. Until last night, the biggest assembly I've ever talked to was my 40-people committee in MUN conferences. Last night, I talked to 150 people and soon, the whole world will be able to watch my talk named Life in A Major.

The theme of our TEDx event was A Journey to Tell. I talked about my journey through music, how I started playing the piano, my wonderful teachers, how I played and what I played on the piano, and I ended my talk with a full performance of Alla Turca Jazz by Fazıl Say. Now, I said full performance because my whole talk contained bits and pieces of piano, me re-enacting my first concert, playing pieces from different genres, showing how you can experience and live the music on a Chopin piece...

I wasn't worried about playing the piano in front of a crowd, in the end, I do that all the time. What worried me was the speaking. Towards the end of the speaker's talk before me, my legs had started shaking and my hands were trembling. Suddenly, the esteemed psychiatrist's talk was over, I was called to stage, and I was standing there, with the lights closed, while my friends from the organizing team pushed the piano to center stage. That's when it hit me: this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and I should make the best of it, and then I knew that no one could tell my journey through music better than me. I wasn't nervous anymore, just excited; excited to be there, excited to be sharing my journey with this many people, excited to have this opportunity.

So I was carried away in the graceful hands of my "story to tell" and my passion for music, until I played the last chords of the Alla Turca Jazz, and the audience started to applaud. With the blink of an eye, the event I've been preparing so hard for for the last month was over...

Yes, it really was over, but when I sat back at my seat, our principle who helped me a lot with my talk smiling at me, my fellow speaker friends and classmates hugging me, I saw my two best friends sitting at the back, applauding vigorously, another speaker, vice president at TAI (Turkish Aerospace Industries) shook my hand and told me over and over again that I was very good, I was happy, of course, and proud of what I had accomplished. I still had some doubt until the coffee break, in the end, they were my friends and they weren't going to tell me that I did horribly, but when I was exiting the hall, quenched, to get a drink, one of my friends from the organizing team came up to me and told me that the esteemed psychiatrist who talked before me loved my talk and told them that he enjoyed it very much. That, and the numerous amount of hugs and congratulations I got from both my friends and people that I've never met before in the coffee break, was enough for me to be satisfied with what I've done. I would do it again and again, if I could, because I've never experienced anything better than doing and telling what you love for people who are willing to watch and listen.

Get up on stage and perform an excellent talk, check.

Be happy for yourself, check.