preparing speech…

I am now preparing for my presentation, preparing for my speech. Monday, will be a memorable day for me. The presentation on Monday will create a history in my life!! Haha~

I presented my speech to mum just now, and the comments I got from her was that, I talked too fast, and the audience may not have the chance to catch up for what I was saying. Yes, I know that, and I was trying to slow down my speed, but I couldn’t… My speed kept on increasing once I started to talk. Nah… there must be a way, nothing is impossible, I know.

When I talk fast, my mind would be jammed up, and I couldn’t get the chance to think about what I was gonna talk about next. Yeah… I definitely need to improve that, need to slow down my speed. My speaking speed is not fast when I speak Chinese though. Hmm… Probably, I really need to train up myself to think in English… Is it possible to change this nature? I will have to try.

Wish me luck, hope that I will sucess in my presentation on this coming Monday!! :D

p/s: honestly, I am thinking if I should change my writing style from a formal one to be an informal one. It is just too formal for me, and I don’t really get use to it… =.="

Certificate

I just snapped a photo of the certificate I got for attending the training program last Saturday.

Yea, I am going to start my own training for the preparation to present a speech of the very first project in Toastmaster Club. It is an easy one – Ice Breaker speech.

I planned to talk about my ambitions. Yes, I am now getting nearer and nearer to my ambition, my ambition since I was small. I hope I will succeed to achieve it!! ^^

Criteria of a good speech

Before go to bed, I just wish to put on few words to this blog. I attended a seminar held by Toastmasters Club in KDU Penang on last Saturday. The seminar with title “Speech Contest Judges Training Program” was actually to teach us how to be a judge.

To be a judge for the contest, a person not only need to be a member of Toastmasters Club, he must have completed 6 projects for Communication Competence (CC) and above.

Although I haven’t reached to the level to be a judge, but at least, I know what does the judges look for in a good speech. The judges are just the ordinary audience as the rest of the people in the contest. It’s just that, they have the authority to judge people, to give marks to the contestants.

From the perspective that judges are looking for, I know how I should do in order to deliver a good speech. It is not only for the judges to judge how good I speak, but it is to train up my speaking skill in order to have better communication skill and presentation skill with people. Below are the criteria of a good speech delivered to the audience.

1. Challenge the mind – it’s to challenge our mind to give a speech / message which is out of the ordinary one. Do not under estimate the audience. They can be cleverer than you. So, we need to think of the contents that are beneficial to the audience. Make sure they will bring home with some useful information. Thus, we need to study a lot, do survey, so that we are delivering the correct information to the audience.
2. Touch the heart – Be yourself, and create connection with the audience. Tell something that you have experienced and be informative to the audience.
3. Tickle the funny bone – To make the audience enjoy your speech, and not to be a too serious one. It can be a humorous speech, which do not need to be funny, but will let audience think about it, and laugh.

I know, the above 3 points are only the theories. I will need to practise more to get those 3 points realistic. How far I can go to train up my skills? I do not have the answer, but I would like to try, so that I know, how far I can increase my own value of competencies.

The most challenging part of each meeting, is the table topic session, as we need to talk about a given topic on the spot. This is really challenging my mind in order to think fast, not only take care of the messages that I would like to pass to other people, but also need to take care on the grammar, vocabularies, body language, eye contact, etc. This is not an easy way, but I know, I have to go through that, no matter how, no matter what.

I remember, last time, one of my teachers told me, if I would to improve my English, I would need to train up myself, not only to “speak” in English, but need to “think” in English too.

Ha, anyway, I still like Chinese a lot. I will never stay away from Chinese, just because, I am a Chinese. ^^

Good night, everyone!

My imagination?

Today, I’m released a bit compared to last week, as most of the issues for the project have been fixed during the weekend.

I read a lot of blogs after back to home, and found a nice drawing blog~ It’s about drawing, the blogger posts all his master pieces up in his blog, and they are so nice! This is the ideal blogging way in my mind since I started blogging in year 2005!!

However, I’m not good in imagination. Even if I have the inspiration of drawing something, I can never draw it nicely. Whatever in my mind, something else is produced. I imagine a tiger, it may ends up a cat on the paper. =.=”

See, this it is. Hehe… I laugh at myself when I look at it…. Haha
 

Anyhow, this is a good way to release my stress. I’m a happy-go-lucky person, but I still have stress, although the word “stress” had never come into my mind until I started to work in the current company. What a lucky girl I am! :P

I will continue to produce “unwanted” drawing when I’m free. It could be a few minute work, or a few hour work for drawing, as if we are drawing using our hands with the real brush and colors, not the Photoshop brush. Hehe

Good night, and sweet dreams!

Time is precious

During my childhood, I always thought that I had too much free time. And, I always tried to find something to do, in order to fill up my free time.

Gradually, I grew up, yet my thinking was still the same, I was just too free that I like to sleep a lot. Whenever I had so called “free time”, I always filled up the time with a nice sleep.

Up till last year, I realized that, I wasted too much time for sleeping. Having a good sleep is necessary, but it was just too much as if I was a decadent. In fact, I’m interested in numerous fields, from languages to cultures, from crafts to arts, from music to instruments, from stars to astrology, from movements to meditation, etc. However, I was just a lazy-bones that did not want to take initiative to involve myself into the erudition of those fields.

I was thinking, am I too late to start it now? What I should do, is to start the first step to be enthusiasm for those fields. I know, once I started it, I will never have a chance to regret of doing it, and I will not.

Hence, I started to learn swimming, yoga, zither, and learn clay modeling this year. I believe, only practice makes perfect. Now, I even attend Toastmasters club, so that I could improve my English and public speaking. From the learning, I got to know which activities are suitable for me, and which are not. Even if I felt not comfortable with the activities, or probably because of the environment, I still learned something, which will always stay in my heart. I do not want to be a mistress of a department, or a company, but I just want to be a mistress of my destiny, my dreams. :)

Time is precious in our life!

The 3rd meeting in Toastmasters Club ^^

It’s again, another Wednesday which has Toastmasters Club meeting in Dell AP1. Although we were late to the meeting for more than half an hour, but at least we still managed to attend the meeting, and I really enjoyed the Table Topic session.

To other people, it may be a scary session, because we need to give a speech with the given topic right on the stage. Although it was only a 2 minute session to speak, but it really squeezed my mind to at least provide some information, either it’s useful information, nonsense, or simply a joke.

This round, I got a question about love - "Should you tell the person that you fall in love to him / her?" Haha~~again, I talked about my love story =.="

In fact, I have confessed to the one I like (not LOVE, I know how I feel, ok), and until now, no result feedback. Haha, eventually, he has feedback the result to me. Of course, the result was a negative answer, otherwise, I’m not single and available anymore now. :P

Should I let him know? Yes, I should, at least, it’s a chance to me, and to him. If I didn’t tell him about my feeling, I’m actually putting myself into a cage, prevent myself from going beyond the limitation.

Ehe… an easy answer, right? I could talk about an easy answer for 1:55 minute. I think it’s good to me, but still, I wish that I can provide more answers in my next table topic. I know I’m a slow thinker, that’s why I’m trying to make myself to think more than what I normally can think of. How much I can go? It’s just a challenge to myself. :)

Besides, I learned a new word, and a new phrase:

1. coerce – forcing somebody into doing something
2. Beat about the bush – say something indirectly

From the comments given by the grammarian, I didn’t really have grammar errors. Thus, I think I need to improve my vocabulary in the next step. Hope that I can make it. :)

Tiring month

Time passes fast. It’s been almost one month that I didn’t update this blog.

Within this one month, I faced a lot of issues, a lot of argument with different people. I even fell sick because of that. That was the very first time, I angry at a person until I fell sick. What a funny topic among my colleagues.

I was really frustrated with my work and my boss. However, still I had to overcome the issues. Haha, I had just attended a training “Responding to Conflict”, yet I was stuck in the conflict with other people. Learning to resolve the conflicts. The conflicts in an organization, it’s not as easy as drinking water… Humanity is really a hard topic to be studied on.

Anyway, I will still continue with my role, do whatever I will need to do… Try my best for what I can.

The song “Love Story”

Just found a song, which I started to like it when I first heard about it.

I like the song’s rhythm, and it gives me a feeling of innocence.
It’s just a simple nice song.  ^^

The 2nd meeting in Toastmasters Club :)

Wednesday, I attended the Toastmasters meeting. That was the 2nd meeting that I attended as a Toastmasters member.

Because of the low volume of attendance, which were only 7 members turned up in the meeting, so I was picked to be the time keeper. It was the easiest role during the meeting, where by I just needed to take care of the timing and turn the lights on and off accordingly.

During the table topic session, I was called up to the stage with an easy topic (to me, I felt that it was easy), but I couldn’t really think of what to say within the few seconds. The topic was “Describe your happiest moment during your childhood to the middle age”. Isn’t it an easy topic to you?

However, when I thought of the happiest moment… Did I have the happiest moment? Basically, I had a lot of happy moments, but I couldn’t measure which moments to be considered as the happiest.

Out of a sudden, a person’s image turned up in my mind. Yes, it was he, the guy that sat beside me when I was in kindergarten; the guy that studied in the same secondary school with me; the guy that stayed beside my house for more than 10 years… and he was the guy that I admired for 13 years, but ended up with hatred among my family and his family. That was the end of story between us.

Was that moment the happiest moment to me? I do not think so, but it just appeared in my mind, and so I just took the inspiration to talk about it straight away. Of course, it was a good laugh to the members, because of the silly actions from me to get his attention when I was a little naughty girl.

At the end, I was the only person who exceeded the time given, which was only 2 minutes. I know what was my weakness when I spoke, and I’m trying to change it. I will see how much I could change. ^^

Playing For Change Foundation

Found a great community called Playing For Change. It is a non-profit organization, which encourage to build up the music sense among all of the people around. They believe that music can make the world peaceful.

They get people around the world to sing the same songs, by just recording a base music from a single person, then let other people listen to the music and exert their inspiration to sing following the base music. 

There are few videos that I like a lot.

"Stand By Me"

No Worries


You May click on below link to go to their official website to have a look on their vision for the organization. :)
Playing For Change

If you would like to watch more videos, you may click on below link for their youtube channel.
Playingforchange

I like the music there, they are really great~! ^^

New blog template ^^

I just changed the template of this blog. The template was found from a website introduced by the blogger "LifeSoFake". There are many great templates in the website, and they are designed for Blogger.

If you are interested, you may go for a try to enhance your blog template. :) As long as you have a space to store those customized pictures for the templates, then it is quite easy to change your blog template. If you don’t have any storage for picture, you may register one from Photobucket, or, you may just use Picasa image storage site with your google email account. It is just free for you~

I personally like this template a lot because it is related to the natural GREEN color. ^^

That’s all for now. I’m going to have a good sleep. Tomorrow will be a busy day for me. Busy for clay class, and will be having dinner with friends~

Plan changed…

Yesterday, Vinc and CA invited me to go to Pulau Paya tomorrow, for a package of RM100 only. Wow~~ so cheap? Very soon, I got the approval from dad. They told the price was yet to be double confirm.

This morning, CA told me, the RM100 package was for snorkeling at the beachside and will have a lunch box only. It is not worth compared with the package we went there during team building previously. Yea, if comparing with the package for team building, the price was different as well, it was RM250 or probably more than that.

Anyway, I was just hoping to get a rest during this long holiday, although it is just a 3 days off…

It was disappointed for me at first, but then, it is ok… because I always have a lot of activities during weekends, so it doesn’t matter if I have programs with friend.

Wish all of you enjoy your weekends. For those who will be having holiday on the coming Monday, wish you enjoy your long holiday as well. :)

Dreams and targets

How many of your dreams have come true? Or, have you ever try hard to make your dreams come true?

I have a lot of dreams / targets, some of them are right now with me, some of them are yet to be achieved, and some of them were just my dreams flew through my life without my effort to achieve them.

Here are my dreams and targets~~

I wish to be a teacher (yet to be achieved…)
Since my childhood, I wished to be a teacher. When I was in the primary school, the teachers used to pass us a card to let us record down what were our ambitions. From Standard 1 until Standard 6, my first ambition was always to be a teacher. However, from my life experience, I have just been being a temporary teacher for only 2 days before I got into the college life. Will it be continued for the rest of my life? No one knows, and I do not really have the plan for it for now, as I have stepped into the IT field for 3 years. My passion of being a teacher has reduced since I joint the IT field…

I wish to have a car after graduated from university (achieved)
When I was in college and university, most of my classmates and friends drove to the college / university by themselves, either motorcycles, or cars. Those vehicles might not be theirs, but I was really envy with the feeling of having my own vehicle, so that I could go anywhere as I like without depending on other people. Since then, I set my target to have a car after graduated from university, probably in half a year time. (My dad does not allow me to learn driving a motorcycle, so I just have a car license) Yes, after half year of working life, I managed to buy a small local car, by using my own salary. I was really satisfy with the car, because it is all paid by myself. Although it’s a burden for me to pay for the car loan right now, but next year will be the last year of my payment to the loan. And, I will be freed up from the car loan after then. ^^ Will I change to a new car in next 3 years? I guess not, as I plan to have my own saving for a travel after that.

I wish to have a house 2 years after having a car (achieved)
After having a car, my next target was to have a house. I don’t like a big house like bungalow or a semi-detached house. It will scary if the house is too big, which you will not know if there is anyone concealing at any corner of the house. I have my own house now, a double-story terrace house, although it’s not fully paid by me. (Thanks to my parents for supporting me from the back. I really appreciate their great help and efforts…) It becomes another burden to me, as I have to paid the house loan. That will be 28 years to go. :)

I wish to take zither examination (yet to be achieved…) 
I have learnt zither for more 3 years. Yet, I haven’t taken any examination for my zither knowledge. I’m not a professional performance as a zither player, but I wish to know what is the standard of my zither knowledge, what are the aspects that I should improve (yea… I actually know some of the aspects that I should improve, and I’m working on them). I believe it will be satisfaction even if I just got a passing result without excellent performance. It’s all my efforts. :) Yet, I couldn’t join the examination this year, because I’m just too busy with the work (Aha… excuse, excuse!!)

I wish to learn as much hand-made crafts as possible (in progress)
This was also one of my dreams since I was young. Unfortunately, I was such an impatient person. I always planned to do some crafts, but at the end, they were all just planned without execution. All of the projects were on hold, or even were cancelled. :P So, now, I’m planning for all the craft works, and will execute them, no matter how long is the lead time to finish all of the projects. This is my target, target to finish the art works that I have planned. ^^

I wish to utilize my weekends (in progress)
Previously, my weekends were very precious for me to have nice sleep, especially Sunday. However, I still felt tired when I went to work on Monday. Thus, I target to have nice weekends, fill up all the weekend free time with different activities. Nowadays, I go for swimming on Saturday morning most of the time, and go for zither class after that. For Sundays, I spend almost 6 hours for clay class, and for the rest of the time will go for my own hand-made craft works. Projects will keep going on and I will explore with my own ideas for that. :) From there, I will really learn a lot, not only for craft works, but increase my knowledge to different fields, because whenever I want to do an art project, I will definitely need to find the information of the particular project, so that I can make it a success.

I wish to speed up my thinking (in progress)
This is one of the reasons I joint Toastmasters Club. It’s not mainly for career achievement, but it’s more for my personal improvement. Speed up my thinking, will indirectly help me in communication with other people. I’m just such a person that is well-known to be slow in response, my weakness and I’m thinking to improve it. Of course, from various activities during my weekends, I believe I’m able to improve my knowledge and hence help me to relate all the knowledge together and apply in my daily life.

I wish to have a family (yet to be achieved…)
I believe, most of the girls wish to have a family, same for me. I will not put all my effort to work, although I’m forced to, sometimes. Anyway, it’s my dream, to have a stable family, a husband that loves me a lot, a few kids with me. It would be better if I could stop working and stay with my kids all day long. I would love to do so, for my own kids’ good. Of course, the condition is that, I will need to find a rich and hardworking husband. XD

So far, there were only 8 major targets for my life. For sure, I have some small small targets to achieve, but they are all categorized under these 8 major targets. I hope, I can really achieve all of them.

p/s: The 8th target was just added in, which was missed out… haha~ Why? Because it was not in my plan since I was small, and it appears only after I entered university life. :P

Ok, going for a shopping with my younger brother soon. ^^

A nice friday~ ^^

After work, I went to Penang with colleagues to have dinner with my ex-boss and her ex-subordinates at Bali Hai.

I guess the restaurant is famous with the seafood. However, I didn’t really enjoy the seafood… It was just because, I seldom eat steam fish when I’m at outside, and I don’t eat crab. However, I finished 2 bowls of shark fin soup!! Aha~ I just like it so much!! Yea, I’m sorry, I’m not an environmentalist. I just do and eat as what I like.

By the way, overall, it was a nice dinner session for all of us, I believe. Although I didn’t really enjoy the food, but I’m still full now, because of the 2 bowls of shark fin soup. :P And, I enjoyed the environment over there, the atmosphere, the people, the restaurant’s decoration, etc. It was a nice one! Unfortunately, I didn’t bring my own camera, and so… I didn’t have the chance to capture any photo of the restaurant, what a waste…

When I got back home, surprisingly, I saw my younger brother Hao, with his long long hair!! =.=" How can he be such a lazy guy until he has never cut his hair since this year’s Chinese New Year??

After looking at him, I noticed there was something in front of him!! Oh, gosh!! He has a pen tablet!! This was what I wished to have as my birthday present previously~~!! I went around to different shopping complexes just to search for this pen tablet tool, so that I could draw in notebook by just using a pen, but when I looked at the price, wow… RM650!! It was just too expensive for me to buy one for myself… Hao bought his one just for RM250. What a good price he got for his pen tablet… I want to have one for myself too… :( I will ask Hao to buy one for me from KL, and ask elder brother to bring back for me~~ Kekekeke~~

Here are the photos of his pen tablet~~ ^^

A medical science book

In Popular bookstore, I stood for more than one hour, reading only 2 books. Of course, no omission from reading crafting books, which was one of the 2 books I read.

Another one book I read, was regarding health. It is an ancient book named "黄帝内经", which was first edited since the Spring and Autumn period of China (春秋时代), 770 – 476 BC. It is one of the 4 canonical books in medical science, which is still available currently.

That was not the first time I heard about the name of the book. However, when I first heard about it from dad, I thought it was just another book talking about the means of politics. After searching around for the contents of this book, then I found out that I was totally wrong. It’s not related to politics, but related to our health, our daily life. And, it talks about Qi (气) that actually circulating our bodies every minute, every second, but only few of us know about the existing of Qi in our bodies. Also, it explains the relationships of organs in human body by using the 5 phases of Chinese philosophy (五行), which are metal, wood, water, fire, and earth.

Although I was not able to finish reading the book (yea, I know how slow I read…), still, I’m quite interested in it. By reading the book, I knew something new about our bodies, and how an organ’s disabled may impact the other organs.

If I have the chance (of course, if I have the time, and capability), I will read this book. Not to be a Chinese doctor, but just to know my body better, take good care of my body.

Last month, the theme of Toastmaster meeting: Health is Wealth. The chair person asked, between Health and Wealth, which would you choose? Yes, for sure, I chose Health. Without Health, I cannot enjoy my wealth. Health, can never be exchanged by using money. :)

A new post after 4 years

After 4 years, this is the second post of mine in this blog. Still, it’s under construction.

This blog will be all in English, which I will try my best to stress on the grammar, vocabularies, etc. in each of the posts.

I’m not sure how long it will last, or probably just one post after per year? Aha… Basically, I’m just an ordinary person who likes Chinese a lot. Currently, all my posts in the main blog are all in Chinese. Of course, from now on, I will continue with my Chinese blog, while trying my best to update this English blog.

I would say, I wish to improve my English while I’m having fun with it. I believe, learn anything by having fun will definately help a person to improve his knowledge in a fast pace.

I hope I could be the same, too. :)