5 minute speeches...

today we had to present a 5 minute speech each in my elective class : vocabulary for the social sciences...

it was a rather enjoyable class...there were funny speeches, serious speeches, poignant speeches and gory speeches...well, Bathminy opened by telling us about how her house was burgled on the eve of Deepavali, and i was suddenly reminded of the poor people living near a Hindu temple in Ipoh who were crushed by a rock fall while sleeping on the eve of Deepavali many years ago...some of the bodies were never recovered, and everytime i pass by i get the shivers...

then there was a speech on timekeeping for the Chinese Debate competition recently, and how one girl actually screwed up the timing, leaving one debater with only one minute to speak...and then yen hsia shared about her dog, Miu Miu which died in an accident...she said she would never again put as much feeling into loving another dog...then Ms Ruth brought up a point on fences and love, that she put up a fence to protect herself from getting hurt...

i know that harn gave me a meaningful look when she said that...all i m saying is that when one has gotten burnt before, the flames don't look so pretty anymore... but there is something that makes us want to try again, want to hope again, want to love again...and though the pain of rejection, of loss is always there, we take the risk if only because to truly live life is to feel its every fibre, even the ones that are rough and cut into our flesh...i don't trust easily, i have known hurt all too well, but that doesn't mean i don't trust at all because when i do, it is complete.

there was one on jealousy and one on missing pants in the changing room. moral of story: watch for your pants when you are trying on clothes during a sale. seriously, pheik ne was lucky to have found her pants back and her IC too...but it sure makes a hell of a story.

then anas talked about how her late grandad and the pendant he had given her...siew wee started to cry at this point, she was reminded of her own grandad's passing last year...i was beginning to feel carried away by memories of my own grandparents, and how we must never take our loved ones for granted...

well, there was a shift in mood when siewwee got up after recovering and delivered a speech on the annoying guy who sat next to her on a plane trip from China. it was quite funny, esp when i thought about his constant scratching and spreading skin flakes into the air...and he had BO too...then yin harn talked about the flavours of happiness, and she kept looking at me significantly when she was up there. why ah? (ignorance is bliss. eh? she said it's for her to know, for me to find out, and for everyone else to keep guessing!...:P)

i talked about my jungle trekking experience in Belum in 2001, and i was reminded of Govindee who used to wear shades even at night and Matt Hoo who went around with a can of Bugz Off all throughout the hike. i think that Matt kind of missed the point of jungle trekking, now that i think about it...was reminded of my constant falling, and getting up, leeches and sores and aches. not to mention the thorny trees and the tiger paw print, and my plan of escape to rootle up a tree if i were chased by a wild boar or tiger...

then susan shared about her friend, the White Rajah aka a huge white monitor lizard that screamed when it saw her...and lai kuan closed with her first-person perspective of watching a baby being born. it was gory, detailed, and made almost all of us reconsider motherhood...i say, when the time comes, it will come. :)