I remember being quite nervous last semester for my midterm, but after going through two interviews, I wasn't nearly as nervous for this semester's go-round. Going into the midterm, I felt relatively calm and well-prepared - I had just spent most of the evening looking over material from class.
Once the midterm began, I found myself settling into approximately the same routine I always do when speaking - that is, indulging in a few bad habits (that I hope have since become less prominent), the most glaring of which are probably my reflexive dropping of the ends of sentences, adding か at the ends of sentences that are not questions, and forgetting to use the past tense. The kicker is, I don't realize I'm doing these things until a split-second after I've finished doing them, so my choices at that point are to either say the phrase again or clench my teeth and fume silently. I suppose this means I should just slow down and think my sentences through more fully before I say them - a problem I definitely don't have in English.
The other thing that really bothered me (and the examiner) during the midterm was my inability to describe any of my experiences as of late except with the word "interesting". I think the problem here is twofold: First, that I in English tend to use a very expansive and colorful vocabulary to describe things, and that I want to use those words to describe things in Japanese, but I can't, because my adjective stash is pitifully small. I remember racking my brains, in class and at the midterm, trying to find ways to say what I wanted to: COPS, for example, is entertaining, horrifying, strange, compelling, and sometimes hilarious. I can't call it "good" or "bad" because it's not. So I end up at "interesting", because it's the closest I can get. Ditto for Ceremony, which I would in English call confusing, mystifying, hard to read, or depressing, but not "bad" or "good" either. I guess I just need to learn more adjectives in my free time or start lying.
All that aside, I felt like I was able to communicate much more fluently with the examiner. A semester of Japanese has given me more experience stringing together sentences and having basic conversation, and I think the improvement showed - I was able to hold very basic discussion without having to spend as much time staring dumbfounded at the examiner. Talking with Noriko-san before class begins everyday has really, really helped as far as that goes - if I can tell her how my weekend went with no preparation beforehand, I should have no trouble telling the examiner the same thing with study time before, right? I was also able to understand the examiner fairly well when he responded to questions I asked - good deal.
Overall, I felt it was a reasonably strong showing of my presentational and interpersonal speaking skills - granted, it would have been better if I had slowed down to think some, perhaps, but still not bad at all.