Random Thoughts Nine_FRED

Seems like June's the month of writing for me.. xD

So many things to write about.

Anyways.

We had the English Speech Contest (a.k.a. FRED) thing last Saturday. Something like a TED event.

I think FRED stands for 'Fun Re-inspired through Edutainment and Diversity' or something..

One team (of one or two people) from each freshman advisor class is required to participate. And from our class it was Kunhee and me.

Well at first I wasn't really sure if I wanted to participate or not, so I decided to stay quiet. But once it was announced that there was going to be a school-wide speech competition, my classmates started telling me (of all people) to participate. And before I knew it, there was this silent, mutual agreement that I'll be the one representing my class.

But I wasn't gonna go up there alone. Honestly, I was kinda scared to be presenting for eight minutes in front of all the 17th and 18th wavers. So I got Kunhee into it. xD

And.. It was tough.

On that very week, both of us had presentations for SAT Biology class, a math quiz, a Wordsmart quiz, and a couple of essays to write. Then we got the FRED speech on top of that.

Well.. Yeah. And that's why (I confess) we've been procrastinating for so long and actually started preparing for the speech Thursday night.

Our original topic was 'Never Give Up!'

And every single person who heard about that said it was so cliche and stuff...

So.. We changed it to 'Passion: Don't Leave the Last Drop.'

Simply put, 'Have passion in your life.'

Which is also cliche, but oh well. It was the best topic we could come up with. We're so creative, aren't we.

But as for the form of the speech, I think we were original. When the other ten teams had a speech where each speaker took turns presenting their part, we decided to have a conversation about things that we did passionately and then convey our message in the last 30 seconds of the speech (credits to Jinuk Ha, our wonderful roommate and class president.. lol)

And on Friday night, we stayed up till 5am writing the speech and making Prezi and memorizing and rehearsing.. Got two hours' sleep, and woke up again somehow and went to the gym and did our presentation. And I'm still not sure how I didn't fall asleep while presenting on the stage.. (Although I fell asleep afterwards.. I think I almost fainted.. Just fell asleep right after the competition and woke up around 8pm..)

The prize? No, we didn't get anything. There were prizes for the Best Speaker and Best Presentation, but.. Yeah. But well I agree to the results; the one who got Best Speaker, his speech was awesome! I think his getting the prize was expected, more or less. And Best Presentation.. Dude, it's the Antonio Stark. :P

And the speeches other than those two were awesome, too. We laughed a lot, and learned a lot. How to be a better speaker, how to be a better listener.

I'm overall satisfied with my experience with FRED. Although (honestly) I got stressed out a lot and got very angry and felt like yelling at someone while preparing for it, and although I didn't get anything, I'm still happy that I got to participate and got through it. And I'm pretty sure that if there was a prize for creativity, we'd have gotten it.

Now I'm back to my ordinary life, and.. uh.. Yeah, it was fun.

(Thank you Mr. Garrioch and the EOP Dept. for organizing this event!)

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Speech:

What’s up, dude?

Ehh, nothing. Why?

Well, I’m leaving for Uganda tomorrow, so I thought I’d just come say bye to you.

Uganda? Wait, isn’t that in Africa or something?

Yeah, I’m going there for the next two weeks for this medical volunteer thing…

Medical volunteer? That sounds great! Wait, what do you do there?

We diagnose people with diseases and give out medicines. And since most of them can’t afford to go to hospitals, a lot of people come to us because of simple illnesses like migraine or the cold. If you think about it, all they need is like a couple of pills of Tylenol, that’s all. But to get that, they walk for days across the country and come see us.

And..?

And I’m really happy to be able to help them, and that’s why I’ve been going there for the last four years. This will be my fifth time.

Whoa, that’s awesome! Sounds fun to me, like a rest from your routine life and all that stuff.

Well, uh, fun as long as you can bear cockroaches crawling onto your face while you’re sleeping and lizards running around your mattress, that is…

EWW! I HATE COCKROACHES!

And the crazy sunlight and seven-hour rides in a 30-year-old bus. Yeah.

Uh… Now I’m not really sure…

But, there’s something else. The people there are so cheerful. Whenever we pass a village, literally everyone comes outside and waves their hands at us, shouting “Yoga!”—which means hi in the local language—and beaming. I just love their energy and everything else. I think that’s what keeps making me go back to Uganda.

Wait, that’s good, but just a thought here. You said two weeks, right?

Yeah, why?

If it’s two weeks, then it’s gonna take up like half of your summer vacation, and you’re probably gonna have to study a whole lot of things on your own that others learned from classes. You sure you can do that?

Well yeah, I agree that it’s gonna be tough for me, especially as a KMLA student. But you know, not going to Uganda is just unthinkable for me now. It’s like an important part of my life. And I’m pretty sure I’ll keep going in the future no matter what.

Okay, well if you’re that passionate about it, I can’t stop you, but I’m still worried…

Hey, it’s gonna be alright. Haven’t you ever been really enthusiastic about what you do? You know, you were like the school president of your middle school. That kind of thing doesn’t come without passion.

Yeah, thinking about it, I had that kind of experience too. Well, to be honest, even until now, I’m not sure how I got into KMLA, because I put in less time in the application because of my job as the school president.

So you mean you didn’t try hard and still got in? Whoa, okay, whatever. You’re awesome. Hey guys, did you hear what he just said?

Whoa, whoa, don’t get me wrong. I’m not boasting. I was in a similar situation like you. Our school’s festival withheld the day before my interview. And as the school president, I had to prepare for it. A lot of people told me that applying to your high school is much more important that the school festival, but I felt this responsibility and I loved it.

So what did you do?

Well, I considered my task as the school president more important, so I decided to focus on it. I had to stay until the festival ended and clean up afterwards. And even after that, when all my friends went to have a party, I had to walk back home alone in the dark.

Dude, that’s so sad!

No, actually, I felt perfectly fine. In fact, I was rather happy. I had planned out the whole festival, and watching the performances behind the stage, I had this sense of accomplishment. I had seen my friends practicing hard for weeks, and I also saw them having difficulties at times. And when I saw them encouraging each other after successful performances, I was just as happy as they were.

Okay, that sounds great. But what happened to your interview, then? You said you were busy doing your job as the school president.

Well, I totally messed up. At the biology interview, one of the teachers made fun of me. I was so embarrassed. But from time to time, I get this idea that my experiences of working as the school president probably helped me in the interview somehow.

You know what? I just realized that going to Uganda had a big influence on my life too. Thinking back on it, before I started going, I didn’t really have a dream, and people suffering from poverty and famine, it was just something on the other side of the earth, something far away.

Right..

But going to Uganda, I saw with my own eyes how hard people’s lives were there, and I got the dream of developing new medicines for people like those. If I hadn’t gone, I’d probably have been just another high school student still wondering what I should do in the future, still having no idea what it’s like to live in Africa.

Looking back on what we’ve said, the key to all this seems to be putting all our efforts into the things we have passion for, don’t you think?

Often times in life, we hear the word ‘passion.’ We know that we should study hard, do our best, and we know that living in a passionate way is good.

But do we really follow our passion? We know what we want, and we are able to hear our inner voice, but aren’t we being too afraid to follow where the voice leads us? Aren’t we too afraid to get out of our comfort zone, and aren’t we too afraid to overcome values that others think are important?

If we just keep our heads down, and hustle and hustle, without noticing where we are or where we are heading, wouldn’t life be too short? So let’s think. Let us know what ourselves love from the deepest part of our soul. And let us follow it, until it leads us to the end of this field called life.

And once we do know what we want, we should never hesitate to pour our effort, to pour our passion until the last drop.

Do not leave the last drop.