This Integrity Thing

Public Speaking Competition (Wed. April 20, 2016 - Auditorium) 

          In our "All-English Term" for this school year 2015-2016, we had two Public Speaking subjects. 

          For the PUBSPE2 (Public Speaking 2) finals some of us had to do the "Ignite Speech", wherein the speech (Can be about any topic) is accompanied by a powerpoint presentation that changes slide every 15 seconds, in this project the speaker is only allowed to glance at the presentation from time to time. For the PUBSPE1 finals some of us had to do the "Integrity Speech," in here there is only one topic that can be used and the speaker has to prepare a speech that will last for 5 minutes with an additional 30-second grace period with no powerpoints and whatnot.

         Here's the catch, our professor chose which project we would do. He said that the majority will do the "Ignite Speech" but there will be a select few that will do the "Integrity Speech" because I guess that's more difficult.

         So from the title of this blog you could probably tell what our professor chose to be my final project for both his Public Speaking classes and it wasn't only me, there were 7 others chosen for this. Hint: it's not the "Ignite Speech."

         Now, making a 3 to 4-minute long speech about any topic is one thing but making a 5-minute speech about a given topic is another. First of all the given topic was a quote by Albert Camus, "Integrity has no need of rules." It was all fine but there was one problem, I knew little about this "integrity thing."

         But with a stroke of luck and two overnighters. I've managed to make my speech, I gave it to sir the next day, he asked me to make some revisions and I made them, then gave it back to him again the next day. After a week he asked the 8 of us to recite our speech in front of the class and all of us were able to successfully recite our speech.

         You would think that it all ends here right? Well, it doesn't. In fact, this is only the beginning.

         This was all part of the Public Speaking Competition that happened on April 20, 2016 at the Asia Pacific College Auditorium. You see, the 8 of us were to compete in this competition representing our block, ABMA-153 against the other freshmen SoMA and SoE blocks. The 8 of us were just anxiously waiting for the day of the competition so that we can finally have our final grade for our Public Speaking classe(s).

The assignment of rooms.

         Then the day of the competition came, the long wait is finally over. The organizers of the event had a systematic way of deciding who would compete with whom for the elimination and final round. This was certainly not in favor of us, the contestants.

Me (in the middle), with three of my blockmates waiting patiently.

         There are about forty contestants and there are four rooms, those forty contestants would be scattered equally and randomly on those four rooms, that is the elimination round. Two of the best contestants from each room would be picked and those eight people would then become the finalists who would compete with one another in the auditorium, facing a large audience, while using a microphone. Writing this part of the blog makes my hands shake.

My point-of-view inside one of the rooms in the Elimination Round.

         As if like magic, I was chosen as a finalist. Unfortunately I was the only one from my block that was chosen to compete for the final round.

         I won't go in to detail about the speeches of my seven other competitors. but I can say that I was already blessed and thankful for even being part of the the finalists. Now, all of my hard work and sleepless nights paid off because I was able to get the 2nd place and this experience has certainly thought me an important life lesson, that a little hard work and perseverance can go a long way.