How I Think My Monologue Went- My Reflection

In acting class over the past two weeks, my classmates and I have been working on monologues. At the end of last week and all of this week, we worked on presenting them to each other in class. I did mine last, because I got sick and wasn't in school for three days. This as quite ironic, since I was also sick when my class started the unit on monologues. I also didn't get to seem all of my classmates perform their's in person, so instead I had to watch the videos of their performances on their blogs.
I really enjoyed watching all my friends monologues, that I at least saw (when I wrote this, not everyone had posted theirs on their blog yet, so I can only write about the people I saw). I noticed that Sam was very expressive with her facial expressions and body language. She also spoke very clearly, with very good diction. Jemima also had very good body movements, especially when she slammed the books down, When she did that, it not only showed how she was angry at the person she was speaking to,  but it also helped keep the audience focused on her. Another good thing Jemima did, was be loud, so it was easy to hear her and very easy to understand what se said also.
When I did my monologue, the hardest part for me was memorization. It did not help that I got sick, so I did not work on it for a few days in a row right after I got it memorized the first time, then did not look at it a few days before I performed it. I still did my best any way, even though I had trouble with it.
One thing that I need to work on when I perform monologues is my movements. I often fidget, especially when I get nerves, like when I perform, so I fidget even more than I normally would. When I fidget, my movements don't look so good, and can be distracting to the audience and take away their focus of my actual performance, not my fidgeting. I need to learn how to make more concise, defended movements that have a purpose, which I will work on next time when I am performing a monologue or any other kind of similar performance.
I think I did well at being clear when I spoke and loud. I noticed that was very important for people when I was watching them as they were doing their monologues. It really helps people understand what is being said and keeps the audience engaged in a performance.
Even though in my final performance of my monologue I had good diction and spoke very loudly, it wasn't always like that. I often spoke in a quiet voice that was unclear and often would speak to fast, but as I went through the process of learning and working on my monologue, I improved all of these things. I eventually evolved into speaking louder first, then I got better diction, and finally I got to being able to talk slower. All of these things gave me a real benefits in my end performance.
Well, that's all I have to say, this week. I'll talk to you next week about our next project- making a silent movie.
-Bye for now- Maddy