speeches and songs

I know. I abandoned this blog for too long. I wish I could simply say, "I've been busy." but that would have been one big fat lie. Pun unintended, because you know, that would be insulting myself. Haha. Self-degradation, best done in public for maximum enjoyment (of others, of course).

Anyway, the reason I haven;t updated yet is because I have to make this particular post first, before anything else. And that is, what I did last Sunday, 25th August 2008. :D

"I WANT TO BE HEARD!" - Gun-hater from Runaway Jury Of course, any other idiot would be able to come up with that ingenious saying.

And we start with a random quote.

Dear Blog-With-No-Readers,

Last Sunday was the 7th National SMARTER Conference.

Last Sunday was also the *insertnumberth* Japanese Speech Competition at IPA.

Last Sunday was the national SMARTER Conference and Japanese Speech Competition at UBD. Both events of which I was supposed to attend. I HAD to attend.

I had to do a speech during the conference to talk about my autistic brother.

My friends and I had to perform two songs during the Japanese Speech Competition.

The crazy thing is, both happened in the morning, and both the timing was so WRONG! They totally clashed with each other. Who could ever be in two places at the same time?!

Well, I could! XD I was on a very hectic schedule, so the planning had to be precise. Some miracle helped too. I got ready, and went to UBD around 8. Had a little practice. I was pretty reassured at that time because the event starts at 9 AM, which means we'll be done with our first song at 10, and I could just zoom off to IPA since my speech was scheduled at 10.30. But, I kind of forgot that in Brunei, when they say it's going to start at 9, that's actually the guest of honour's wakey-wakey time. So in the end, the opening lagged until around 9.45, which means no chance to perform D:

And that's when the miracle happen! None of the speakers of the first level were there, so we get to perform right after the Guest of Honour's speech! We were done by 10. So I changed my shirt into the SMARTER shirt, and rushed to IPA with my driver. Because of the winding road, (damn highway got no u-turn), I arrived around 10.25. My mum already re-scheduled my speech to 10.45, but with the rush of adrenaline I had at that time, I wanted to go on stage right then. So I did. And I gave the speech. I think I did pretty okay, albeit speaking a little too fast in the beginning.

Well, obviously I talked about my brother, my experience as a sister to an individual with Autism. The previous "Parent's Experience" had brought out tears from everyone, but obviously mine didn't. One, I wrote my speech the night before, so there was not much input. And two, it was too brief. Besides, I already said in the beginning of my speech that "what I write here is a very summarised version of what I actually feel, as half of the things I feel and think could not be expressed in words." HAHA, very dramatic.

So, right after I finished that speech, I had to stop to talk with a few of the other speakers, these ones are "Australian-imported" speakers, specialists on Autism and whatnot. My mummy made me see them, but it was cool because they managed to put my nervousness away. Some people in the audience also gave me a thumbs up, and one of the most unexpected ones was when one of them stopped me and said, "your speech is very nice. You are a very wonderful sister" with her teary eyes. As I am not good with handling those kind of situations, I just said thank you (lots of times, until she let go of my hand)and then rushed out before anyone else stopped me. Haha, and then, I went to UBD again for the second performance.

I was already there, and could have been earlier, if it wasn't for a stupid car who drove like a snail in front of us, right in front of the Chancellor Hall. Wasted 2 minutes of my life. When I actually reached it, they were already in line to go up the stage. So I quickly took my position and went ahead. Any later, and I would have missed it!

Good thing is, that was the last of it. I managed to relax after that, stayed back to watch the rest of the competition, and even had lunch there.

The way I typed things up here, it doesn't sound like I was really in a rush. But trust me, it was CRAZY. I have pictures, but I'm too lazy to upload them. Maybe someday, when I have the mood to edit this post, I will!