Monday, August 20, 2007

First public speaking experience

I got a call from Uncle Kit on Saturday afternoon. Initially, I thought he wanted to ask me something about the murder of Tang Lai Meng or some social issues in Sungai Long. When he said that he wanted me to speak in the forum in KL Selangor Chinese Assembly Hall, I was surprised. I honestly couldn’t believe it. I thought DAP was lacked of speakers(so he called me) I was wrong. There is a panel of distinguished speakers, I am the only “nobody’ among the speakers. I didn’t take long to decide speaking. After my cousin said he could fetch me back to KL, immediately I gave Uncle Kit a return call telling him “I can make it!”

I was at my aunt’s house when Swee Kuan called me to confirm my particulars. I was quite excited and my Aunty somehow overheard that I will be speaking in the forum. She started getting panicked. Minutes before that, I told her I was just going to attend the forum. She then psycho me trying to convince me not to go, she said what if I get arrested under ISA, OSA, ICAC, BCAB, PWC, JGHFUXXXX just the month before I am leaving for London? My future will be ruined……bla bla bla….. She even took the script I drafted and trying to read what am I going to speak. When she read something about UMNO in my script she started nagging again
“UMNO is UMNO business lar, you don’t talk about UMNO lar. You just say you support Ming chi enough lar, later police arrest you……”

I was like,oh….ok ok. No UMNO. Lol. I also did not tell my parents that I am going to speak in the forum. First, they wouldn’t believe me. Secondly, I think if they believe me, they would stop me from going. Therefore I just told them I have some urgent matter to “settle” in KL. Of course they let me go.

I took the whole night trying to write up my full speech. It was a sleepless Friday night; the only thing kept playing in my mind was the piece of speech I am going to deliver.

Saturday afternoon, after watching Lin Dan beating Sonny in the Badminton World Championship we started journey back to KL. I was getting more and more nervous. I clearly couldn’t remember the last time I spoke in front of public. If I’m not mistaken it should be during primary school in the story telling competition or Pertandingan Syarahan. And that was in front of a bunch of school kids!

I reached the Chinese Assembly Hall on time. I was surprised that the whole room was full! Full house man~ previous forums I attended weren’t like that. Guan Eng suggested that we shift to the second floor(a larger hall) to accommodate more people. I can feel the warmth of the public. When we walked up to the second floor, surprisingly my nervousness and tensions all went off automatically. Suddenly there was a burning desire inside my heart to deliver a good speech.

When it was my turn to speak, I started quite shaky and eventually got better. The feeling on stage is good, everything just flows on smoothly that even I myself was surprised. The thunder applause from the floor definitely helps a lot. Tony said my speech was better than what they expected. He said Guan Eng was quite worry of my speech before the forum. As long as I deliver a decent piece of speech I am satisfied.

Right now I am in a dilemma. I want the news of this forum to be published in the papers(mainstream media I mean). However, I do not want my parents to see me in the newspaper! Sigh, I will have a tough time explaining to them by tomorrow. Maybe I can wake up early tomorrow and try to “get rid” of the newspaper? What’s a good excuse? Raining – paper got wet? Stray dog bites our newspaper? Or wind blows our papers away? Or maybe I can just say, that guy just looks like me, it’s not me~ ;p

And last but not least, Thank you Uncle Kit for giving me this opportunity! Thanks for having faith in someone without any public speaking experience like me to deliver a speech in such a big big forum!

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