Talking About the Talk

We have spent a long time writing this speech, from researching to revising, meeting a lot of problems and fixing them steps by steps.
First of all, I think there are several things I have done well. To begin with, I extremely like my topic. China is one of the most familiar things with me, therefore I can easily write the true content sincerely. I picked five small topics at first, but found it difficult  to be detailed and shortened it to three topics that I interested in most. To my surprises, these topics also interested my roommates and they have given me a lot of useful advise. Secondly, the personal experience in my speech are intriguing. When I first wrote the speech, I hardly added any personal experience but most resources. However, when I noticed that personal experience is needed, my speech started to be more fluent. I added a lot of happy memory during my childhood. The process was fun, thinking back the old days really brought me a bunch of happiness and it is the first time that I wanted to spread my felling by this speech. Luckily, that worked. The special experience attracted my roommates' interests which made me a little proud. 

Nevertheless, significant weaknesses are showen in my speech while using resources is one of the biggest problem. In my first draft, I used nearly all reasources to construct my speech. What was worse, I even did not do correct citation. Many resources were confusing too. Their language was complicated and hard to understand. Besides, I even could not state my thesis. The contents and the thesis were sometime out of relevance. 

As for my in-class delivery, I personally think it was fine. Although some of the pronunciation was incorrect, most of them was articulate. My pace was a little bit fast which I can control next time. In my opinion, the most of importance thing is that I should get more familiar with the content. There were times that I could not breath smoothly because the sentences were too long... However, the good thing is that because of the familiarity, I could express my emotion correctly and genuinely like telling a story without hesitating. 

Finally, I have learnt from watching others practice and deliver their speeches. First, I noticed that while standing without an iPad, people's hands might have a lot of small movements out of control. To deal with this, I think that I would like to have some gestures which could express my emotion with my hands like putting them on my heart. This may help me cover up my tension. Besides, pauses are needed. When putting forward a question or transfer to another topic, pausing for a while would help audience follow the speaker better. Last but not least, being confident is always better than being nervous.

All in all, I belive that this Tedtalk will be really good after a long-time preparation. I hope that I can get familiar with the speech as soon as possible and even memorize it.

The home of my heart✨

When I first heard the topic "This I Believe", what popped into my head is the scene which my mom told me that "whenever you are tired or sad, your family will always be here and China will never move." Not until I arrived in the United States, I realized that China is the most unique and warmest part in my life. China, the huge country with 5000-year-old history, not only shows her differences and developments during the river of time, but also opens her warm arms and shows her welcome to both her children and people from the world. Think deeply through your life, where is your"home" that you love so much no matter it is a place, a person or a certain small thing. As for me, China, which brings me prides, great memories and the best food, is definitely the only choice.

Mentioning China, I bet that most of you will come up with two things, the Great Wall and pandas. The Great Wall of China, the world's longest wall and biggest ancient architecture, was generally built along an east-to-west line across the historical northern border of China in order to protect the Chinese emperor(travelchinaguide.com/china_great_wall/)  The first segments were built in the fifth century BC and the last contributions of the Great wall of China where build in the sixteenth century AD. Approximately 500.000 people took part in building the wall.  There is an old saying in China that "One who fails to reach the Great Wall is not a hero". When I was 4, my grandmother took me to the Great Wall and asked me to walk as far as possible. It was really a harsh task for a young girl to mount multiple stairs without any help. However, after walking for 5 hours, I finally reached the target my grandmother gave me. Standing on the highest tower, overlooking the mountain and the river of China, a sense of pride filled my heart. The pride was not only because I had done the impossible mission and built my confidence, but also because of the masterpiece my ancestors have created.                                                     

Not only protecting herself, China also dedicated her intelligence to the entire world in many ways. One of the most important contribution is China's four great inventions. China's long history has seen some extremely important inventions emerge, most noticeably gunpowder, paper-making, printing and the compass, which, in the words of Roger Bacon, changed the whole appearance and status of things in the world. The most fun thing, for me, must be the gunpowder, which led to the modern day firework. During the Chinese Spring Festival, children always play firework to celebrate. I used to be afraid of the sound, however, the blazing with color really intriguing me. In the night on every December 31st in Chinese calendar, my father would always brings me out and buy a bunch of fireworks. Later, my whole family would stays together and light the firework. Just like Americans celebrate the 4th of July Raising our heads and making a wish, the firework not only makes the festival more alive and jubilant, but also gains the family together and gives us hope. Every time I see the firework no matter on the TV or lit by myself, it reminds me of my dear family and their happy faces when they look at the flowers on the sky.

What do you like most in your country? As for me, Chinese food must be one of the best parts which constructed the reasons for my love to China.  Development and diversity of the delights of Chinese cuisine are also representative of China's long history(http://www.travelchinaguide.com/intro/cuisine_drink/cuisine/). Chinese can change nearly everything into food from sharks to worms which built Chinese's strong stomach which sometimes really scares me. There is one time when my mom took me to a far place to eat different kinds of snakes which is cooked in 9 different ways. That was absolutely disgusting. I refused at first. However, I was really hungry since we have stayed there for two days and there was no other meat but snake. Finally, I tried a little bit fried snake. That was amazing, I admit. I could not refuse the cate anymore and started to enjoy. This is not the only experience I have met. Nevertheless, it doesn't mean that Chinese eat food blindly. There are usually stories connected with the specific cuisine. The chef who killed the snakes told me that in a legend, their village was invaded by the evil of snake. The villagers tried their best to resist and finally got success. To celebrate their triumph, they captured nearly all the snakes and cooked them in different ways. To be honest, also the multitudinous kinds of banquets are delicious, what I like most is the homemade cuisine. The sweet steam bread in the morning, the reeky noodle soup for lunch and my favorite spicy hot diced chicken built my gustation of China which I miss every second in my life.

Think deeply through your life, where is your "home" that you love so much no matter it is a place, a person or a certain small thing. Whenever your think about it, you will smile and be proud of it. People should always have beliefs. As for me, I don't believe in religions but believe in this  country and most of the things belong to it. As time pass, many things would change, even the most familiar things for us would be out of all recognition. Nevertheless, just like what my mom said, my family will always be in China for me, which I wholeheartedly believe and will never change.