Dreams I dream for you

I have long noticed that my strength and confidence, especially in the area of public speaking come not from the crowd’s reaction, but from the faith my friends have in me.

I remember my very first public speaking experience. I was standing on a podium trying to recite my primary school’s doa. I was small (not in size – I was never small that way) and I couldn’t lift my head up from that miserable looking, crumpled sheet of paper I held in my hands long enough to meet the eyes of my audience for fear of forgetting my lines (even though I'd spent the last 10 minutes replaying all the words in my head). A year after that, I found myself once again in that same spot. Except I wasn’t reading the doa then: I was about to read an eight minute speech on peer pressure. I remember how badly my hands shook and how when the bell rung on the seventh minute, I froze.

Then came that fateful debating year in which I was forced to learn the wonders of palm cards after an embarrassing morning of debate session with my hands trembling like nobody’s business while holding large A4 sheets of notes which unfortunately, amplified the vibrations for all to see. So I had to learn some things the harder way.

I'd come a long way since then. But the important point that is worth noting is that I only managed to overcome that initial stage fright because somehow I know that in the midst of the crowd seated below, laughed as they might at my Parkinson-diseased hands, were friends who believed in me. People and souls who believed I had the ability to deliver a good speech, a good debate. And because they believed, I believed too.

Now I have not the ability to write a composition that can properly and justifiably and effectively capture the entire events of last week’s campaign for Student Council. It was a tiring week, yes, with late nights and busy mornings. I had to deliver the same manifesto with a cheesy ending to 10 different EALD classes.

And as though that wasn’t awkward enough, I recited the same thing 5 times to Miss Julia, thrice to Mr Oliver and twice to Miss Maria. I believe Miss Julia must have memorized my speech. If not, she had got to be rather bored with it. Haha.

Today was the Election Day. We had a more effective mock EC here in Sunway so results were out in no less than 2 hours after voting. Well, we only had half an hour for voting anyway.

Eric bagged President and Katryne bagged Treasurer.

I suppose my cheesy manifesto wasn’t enough to touch the hearts of the Jan intake.

But though there weren’t a lot of consolations (which made all the little consolations count even more!), I had the biggest surprise with those six pieces of green coloured papers, folded in some complex origami pattern which appeared miraculously out of thin air on my bed after I got out from my shower. My eyes actually glittered a little. :’)

You see the darkness, I see the spark.

You know your failures, but I know your heart.

That’s the excerpt of the lyrics from Avalon’s Dreams I Dream for You. And it refers to God, of course. But I think in this context, the “I” refers to a lot of other people as well.

Today I write to thank God for the experience, for the support and friends who have been sensitive enough to sense my need.

So I’ve lost an election.

But I’ve gained so much more.

(Besides, Yi Hui bought me Cadbury Boost!!!! :D:D)