Blog # 11: Reflection on Speech
I thought I had already written a reflection on my speech, but maybe it has been good for me to ponder the ideas I explored in writing my speech for the last couple of weeks. I have thought about the ideas in my speech, definitely on College Tour, and even in my everyday school life, and the contrast to my school life of being on Spring Break.
It is very interesting that when people who are giving their speeches now, or gave it in the last week ask me what my speech was about, I can’t really give them a plain answer, because the truth is, it is about a lot of things. It is about my life, my life on a day to day basis, the lives of my schoolmates and peers, and the stress of the future-bound society that we live in. And it is about how easy it is to lose track of your dreams and who you truly are because you are too busy focusing on what is best for your future, or how to do the best at everything. This was especially clear to me in the speeches of the girls in my class, two of whom expressed their feelings about their parents expecting them to do something with their lives, or even not giving them the freedom or choice to make other decisions. I envy those people who know what they want to do in the future, or who resist the boundaries set down by their parents because they feel passionately about doing something different from what their parents want them to. What I know, is that I love Spanish and I love High Jump, and I love Soccer, and I love my family, and I love school (except for the stress part of it), and I love writing, and reading, and reading poetry, and watching movies, and being able to decide to go to sleep when I am tired, which is completely out of the question on school nights, and often on weekends as well, I love so many things, and so many more things than are on this small list of things, but, the truth is, I still don’t know what I want to do with my future. I honestly don’t think my parents put pressure on me, at least not verbally, aside from the fact that I cringe to think about telling my parents about a bad grade I got. I think most of the pressure comes from myself, ever since I got straight A’s on my first report card at John Burroughs Middle School, I have strived for that perfect record in all of my classes, although I have somewhat lowered my standards, because I am currently taking much harder classes than I encountered in my entire middle school career, and because in some classes, I know that I struggle, and I accept my grades as the best I can do. However, in most cases, that still doesn’t mean that I don’t think about how I could have done better in each class, or what, if anything had gone wrong that quarter or semester that would have lowered my grade.
One of the themes of my speech, the future-bound society that we live in has certainly affected me in the last three weeks, I was recently on College Tour, and then, once we got back to school, we went straight into course planning for the next year. After learning about how we should take all the APs we could handle on College Tour, Mrs. Hotchkiss reminded us that we should only take AP or Honors courses in the classes that we really enjoy. Those seem to be two contradictory ideas to me, and while looking to the future, taking as many APs as I can, or at least the most challenging courses, seems to be the best bet.
In terms of the stress of my everyday life, which I also talked about in my speech, I have a Math test tomorrow, a Spanish Quest and English presentation on Tuesday, a Chemistry quiz on Thursday or Friday, and I am awake right now, at 11:15 p.m. on a Sunday night, already putting myself in a position of not enough sleep, and the school week hasn’t even begun. But, honestly, I don’t feel stressed right now, maybe because blogging makes me happy and relaxes me because it lets me let out whatever I have been holding in from the rest of the world. I don’t really know why. Maybe because I don’t have a Math test today, but then when I wake up tomorrow, all the stress will be back because I have a Math test tomorrow. I don’t know.
Thinking back on my speech, I remember that it was a really great experience for me. Especially being able to explore defying the society that I have always taken for granted the way it is, or as the way it should be in my speech. I really enjoyed being able to share my thoughts and ideas with my fellow peers, because I know that they too, experience the stress and pressure of the future-bound society that we live in, and the pressure to always strive to do your best. John Wooden describes success as a “peace of mind which is a direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you did your best to become the best you are capable of becoming.” That’s all fine and good, and for a while I accepted it as a great piece of wisdom, and was comforted in knowing that whatever my achievement or lack thereof, as long as I did my best, there was nothing better I could have done, it didn’t matter what the score was. As long as I did my best, there was no point in worrying what I could have done differently to increase the score or make it better, I did my best and that was all that could be expected of me. But now, I realize, that the mantra doesn’t quite function, if you don’t trust yourself to evaluate whether you did your best or not. Even if I achieve the best, I always think, well, was there something I could have done better? If I don’t achieve the best, there must have been something I did wrong, or something that went wrong, or some excuse that could be made for why I didn’t achieve the best I could have. What I didn’t understand before was the importance of understanding when you did your best, and when you could have done better, something that only you can evaluate, and something which I am not yet capable of evaluating.
Overall, I think the speech project was a great experience. Writing it, and delivering it and communicating it to the class. I think my peers identified with the stress and pressure I feel come as a result of the society that we live in, and as a result of our own personal mentalities that we each as individuals have. I feel that the ideas I explored were very relevant to my life, and I look forward to blogging more about them in the future, and as I explore more ways of thinking about them.
Thank You SO Much.
