Overall, I think I did alright on my TedTalk.  This assignment was a bit harder for me because public speaking (not that it was even public, but you know what I mean) is not my strong suit, so fully memorizing the talk was rather difficult.  I used a few notes, but did not rely on them as heavily as in the last assignment, so there were a few more “ums” and pauses.  I also do a lot more hand gestures when nervous, and that showed a lot more here which could’ve been a bit distracting.  I also had some issues trying to condense my talk into 4 minutes, so I had intended to include more theories but was unable to.  Despite the minor change in plans, I think I did a good job at expressing my information and summarizing the theories in an engaging way.  I also think I did a good job at explaining how the shift in theories influenced modern policies.  Despite my topic being not-so-scientific, I did thorough research to back up my talk.  I also think my slide show was done well, as it was not distracting and only additive.  However, my roommate who was advancing the slides for me messed up a bit in the final take, causing me to pause and get jumbled a bit.

As far as topic ideas for the Controversy assignment, I’m a bit at a loss.  The main controversies I can think of tend to be a bit more political, which I don’t mind, but don’t want to create issue with conflicting opinions in a group that would make the assignment hard to complete (I know that conflicting viewpoints is kinda the main idea of the assignment, but I’m worried about conflict that could possibly make the assignment tense to complete).  But thinking along those lines, topics could include health care, mask mandates, immigration, systemic racism, abortion, gay-marriage, death penalty, etc.  Another topic idea that would personally interest me (if you read my blogs or have seen my paradigm shift assignments, this shouldn’t surprise you) would be scrutiny over the US prison system (incarceration vs. rehabilitation, for-profit incarceration, etc).