The Wheel Spins, My Name Comes Up

It was just a normal revision session, the kind where everyone’s head is down in their notes. The teacher pulled up the wheel on the screen, and the room got that familiar, quiet kind of tense. My heart did a little jump, the way it always does, even though I knew it was coming.

That moment of suspension

You watch the wheel spin, a blur of names. For a second, you’re not thinking about the answer, you’re just hoping it lands somewhere else. Anywhere else. It’s a weird mix of dread and a strange curiosity.Then it stops. And there it is. Your name. The air feels different. You take a breath, and the first thought is just to say something, anything, before the silence gets too loud.

Answering before the fear sets in

I learned to just start talking. The trick was to not let my brain catch up to my mouth. If I paused to think about whether I was right, I’d freeze. So I’d just say the first thing that felt close to the answer.Sometimes it was messy. The words tumbled out in the wrong order. But getting something out there was always better than the awful quiet. The teacher would usually nod, or rephrase it gently, and that was enough to keep going.It stopped being about being perfectly correct. It became about participating, about being part of the conversation instead of watching it from the outside. The wheel made it random, which somehow made it fair.

A gentler kind of practice

After a while, the dread faded. It became a routine part of class, like taking attendance. The wheel wasn’t out to get me; it was just a way to make sure everyone had a turn.Hearing other people fumble through their answers helped, too. It made my own stumbles feel normal, just part of learning. We were all in it together, even if we were on the spot alone.It’s okay if your voice shakes a little. It’s okay if you need a second. The point was just to try, and the wheel gave everyone that chance without making a big deal of it.