Exquisitely Uncomfortable

Today I played reporter at Spirit of Football's street football tournament. I had actually been looking forward to this opportunity as a way to get out of the house and out of English, but the result today was simply awful. My loosely defined assignment was to interview the participants, aged 14-17, and the organizers of the event. The result, I am afraid, will be published on Spirit of Football's website and on Todo Aleman.

The interviewing itself wasn't so bad. Accompanied by a cameraman from the Thüringer Allgemeine, I had a few short conversations which, in hindsight, went all right. But then came the part when I had to talk directly to the camera, and that was when I choked.

The video clip was intended for the Goethe Institute's trilingual youth-oriented website Todo Aleman, and I needed to film a short opening scene in which I introduced the event, mentioning Todo Aleman as partial sponsors. But somehow, I couldn't get any words out.

The camera man said, "Rolling."

I stared into the camera.

The camera man: "Rolling."

"Ladies and gentlemen, football fans, our friends at Todo Aleman, welcome to this year's first Spirit of Football street football tournament! I'm Anna, reporting live from Nordpark in Erfurt and...um..."

(Long pause.)

The camera man: "Rolling."

"...and we have nice weather....(long pause) okay I really don't know what else to say. Can I do it again?"

Camera man: "All right, that was good. This time finish your sentence."

Me: "Ladies and gentlemen, dear friends at Todo Aleman, dear football fans and sports enthusiasts, welcome to this year's first Spirit of Football street football tournament! I'm Anna, reporting live from Nordpark in Erfurt, where 5 teams (here I struggled with the plural of "team" in German) have gathered to um...play football and um...yeah! Enjoy!"

Ugh. Terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad. I started well, but, as often happens to me, couldn't find a graceful way to land the plane, instead defaulting to the crash and burn method.

I am, in a sick way, almost proud of my awful performance.