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The gift and the curse of this busy year I’ve been having is that I am starting to have to pick and choose the speeches I go to and the areas I’m able to speak in.

Particularly in the last few days, I’ve been swamped under with speaking requests for different areas of the continent and as much as I enjoy spending as much time as I can at events, it’s starting to become more and more difficult to do so.

I’ve always said that I wish someone could just say to me…”Here’s your schedule David, now go do these 100 speeches.” Of course, I’d also like a tree in my backyard that grows $100 bills, but we can’t always get what we want.

So until my dream of a magic schedule comes through, I sit in front of the computer plotting away my schedule points like an intricate chess game. The more I can fit in, the better…just as long as Air Canada doesn’t cancel another one of my flights!

Well as any of you that are living in the Northeast know, there is this powdery white substance falling to the ground. Some would call it snow…I am one of those people.

With school cancelled all over New York, including in the Canton area, the Conference I was scheduled to speak at was cancelled today. We’re hoping to reschedule in April, but in the meantime, it left me with a day to kill in a hotel room in Canton.

It’s a GREAT thing I just bought this new laptop on Monday because othewise it would have been a VERY lonely way to spend my Valentines Day. So I sat here by my window seat getting work done as I’ve watched for the past 8 hours, the snow fall without stop. This reminds me of the Great Blizzard of ‘93 I was a part of that left my family stranded in the dreadful Flag Inn!!

I should be arriving in Cornwall tomorrow as long as the weather doesn’t continue through the night and get worse.

I hope you all have a Happy Valentines Day and Night.

Go Raptors.

I wasn’t sure what to expect today with two speeches and a workshop on a very hoarse voice, but the voice held out for a successful day in Perth, Ontario.

More and more, I’m enjoying running my Student Council Workshops because it is so much more personal and I can see the impact it is having immediately. This is as opposed to performing large speeches where the impact I’m having is internal with students and I can’t necessarily see it unless they decide to send me an E-Mail and share it with me.

While the Motivational Speeches are definitely more important to the general body, I think I would like to expand what I do with Student Councils and work with more of them on a closer level. By creating change within the student councils, spirit and excitement in schools will build up.

Now to devise a game plan…

I have my first speeches since getting sick in a few hours and as I woke up and coughed up a lung, I realized how much fun I’m in for! Still not better, so we’ll have to see how today goes…it should definitely be interesting!

An interesting article I just read…8 students at a Catholic School were suspended for improper postings on facebook. Good. Students and all of us need to understand that when we use the internet, our images and words are broadcast around the world. As much as I love sites like facebook and myspace and enjoy instant messanging on MSN and AIM, I think we often forget that the written word can be even more powerful than the spoken word because it’s printed and listed there permanently.

I hope that the students who were suspended learn that writing negative messages about their Principal or anyone else online is cold and mean. The expression, “if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say it at all”, seems to be lost on the internet and it needs to be recaptured.

11 days after first feeling ill, I’m STILL sick! It would be one thing if it was an ear infection, or an eye infection, but a THROAT infection? No, no, no. The one area that a Speaker NEEDS is his throat and right now I don’t have it.

Starting on Tuesday, I begin a 4 speech/2 workshop tour in Eastern Ontario and as of now, I can barely speak.

Time to keep pumping the Benilyn, advil, ice cream, soup and OJ. Hopefully I’ll get lucky!

After coming back from a great trip to Georgia, I woke up with a terribly soar throat. Six days later and it’s only gotten worse and more obnoxious.

I went to the doctor’s yesterday and took the horrible throat swab test.

***DAVID MAJOR TRIVIA*** – When I was in High School, I wanted to become a Pediatrician specifically so I could invent something that would be a substitute for strep throat throat swabs.

Back to the story…

So the doctor told me that because it’s affecting my throat, it probably means a viral infection. This of course means it can’t be treated and I just have to wait it out. The problem with this is that I have a ton of schools I need to call to get contracts finalized and I have 4 speeches next week from Tuesday – Friday.

I haven’t been able to call or talk to anyone on the phone as doctor’s orders are not to speak. Believe me…nobody wants to hire a Motivational Speaker that can’t even speak!

Time for some Benilyn, Advil, OJ, Soup, Ice Cream and a Pillow.

Go Leafs.