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0 The following is an Introduction speech I wrote for my Project 1 Ice breaker speech for Toastmasters. In this speech, I talk about my early life. It is an interesting story if I say so myself. I haven’t
“Anything that doesn’t kill you, makes you stranger.
Good evening, Mr.(or Madam) Toastmaster, fellow members and guests,
I was born in Delhi, but soon afterward moved to Shimla. I lived in Shimla for about seven years. I wasn’t always this handsome hunk you see before you. My family had a tradition where the child’s hair won’t be cut until the age of 2.5 years. For whatever reason, that didn’t happen for me. So until the age of 7 years, people thought I was a girl because of my long hair and fair color. Until the age of 10, I was an average guy without a care in the world. However, that soon changed. I was terrible in Mathematics and to make matters worse, I had a terrible teacher with a vendetta against me. I’m sure many of you can relate to my situation. Around this time I and my father had very little interaction. However, he came to rescue this time. He usually had to work even on holidays, despite that, he took out time and taught me mathematics We looked at my previous exam sheets and realized the teacher had crossed many of the questions I had done correctly. I used to play cricket and badminton with kids who were a lot older than me. This changed me a lot. I now believed you can do anything with hard work and it encouraged me to stand up for the right thing no matter who you are up against.
Gradually I became very competitive and outspoken. With my competitiveness, I improved greatly both in academics and sports. I got into most sports teams of my school. I also started participating in various debates, stage plays, recitals and even hosted a few events.
However, my love life went in a different direction. I received my first love letter when I was in 7th grade. It was 4 pages long and had an MCQ question. And I had two options: 1) Yes, I love you and 2)I don’t. Everyone had already been teasing me about her. Now I did not know what to do about the letter. This girl that I barely knew was somehow in love with me. The girl was getting impatient. I don’t know why but I returned the letter with a yes. And it was the beginning of a unique relationship, a one that I could have never imagined. It was special because I never came to know when it ended or if there was a relationship, to begin with. We barely talked after I returned the letter. All my other endeavors in love ended similarly.
I felt I had reached a peak in my life when I completed 10th standard. I was great in sports, scored 10 CGPA in 10th standard and was a pretty good speaker. And like any good son, I chose science in 11th or rather it chose me. I pursued to be an engineer from IIT. I applied for admission to St. Columba’s school as it was considered one of the best schools and was very near to my place of residence. Around 200 students gave the exam for admission. I felt I wasn’t going to make it. I was preparing to console my parents when we went to go see the results, only to find I had scored the maximum marks. I was very happy at the moment, but now I think it would’ve been better if I hadn’t gotten in. I felt like an outsider because the students knew each other since kindergarten. They actually said that I wasn’t a true “Columban”. Coming from a Co-ed school, the all-boys school gave me weird vibes all through my 2 years there. An absurd set of foolish rules didn’t help either. Getting into IIT became my life objective, nothing else mattered.I started off confidently, however, after some time every day became a struggle. The uncertainty of whether I would be able to make it after so much of effort and sacrifice made it really hard. I was drawn to TV shows and tech for comfort. Most of my college friends now know me as the Tech guy who has seen every TV show there is. After 2 years of struggle, I made it to IIT and chose to study at IIT Delhi because of its proximity to home. I went to the hostel 4 days before the commencement of classes. I came to know about various things about IIT in those 4 days(most of which was useless information). I fell ill the first day of classes. For about 4 days I got really really sick. No one knew what it was. Then we came to know I actually had dengue and all the medicines I had been taking made it worse. My platelets count dropped so much I had to be hospitalized for a week and had to be supplied with blood. When I went back to IIT, I realized dengue was all rage there. They gave us all sorts of useless information but nobody mentioned we should take precautions against dengue. With each day from terrible mess food to ridiculous management, I realized IITs are nowhere as great as they are hyped up to be. I’m now in my sophomore year and I don’t have as great marks or resume as my fellow students. I no idea what I’m going to do. Still, I’m not worried, because. But I have faced many more difficulties and endured. The more difficulties I face, the stronger my will gets.
The only constant in life is change. So make sure it changes to something better.”
