"Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, today is a game; so have fun!"

Tonight the seven of us had the privilege of being the honorary judges at the school's annual English Speech competition. David (Gaowei) was the MC for the event, which made it extra special for us. We were asked to judge 30 different students on prepared and unprepared speeches, which they had memorized. The students were all from the high school and most were students of Michael.

The prepared speeches were very serious in tone and focused on inner reflection, happiness, and hard work. Some of the topics that you can see on the right were a perfect life, sincerity, smiling, family love, opportunity and challenge, tears of my father, my foreign teacher, and the definition of success. The unprepared speeches proved to be a lot funnier as the students were just that: unprepared! Topics ranged from, your favorite animal, to whether it was ok to have a boyfriend or girlfriend at school, to smoking! It was entertaining to say the least.

Some of the speeches were very inspiring. I jotted down some notes as the kids spoke. Some quotes that stuck out for me are as follows:

"the four most important things in life are love, patience, courage, and sense of responsibility."


"to adapt is to conquer."


"the world is changing, people are changing. sincerity will never change."


"devote yourself to living in sincerity and your life will be more beautiful."


"work, family, health, friends, and spirits. these are the essences of life. have balance between all."


"nothing is over until the moment you stop trying."


"don't run through your life so fast. you'll forget where you've been, and not realize where you're going." *****


"today is history, tomorrow is a mystery. today is a game. have fun!" *****


"attitude determines everything."


"failure is the mother of success."


"failure is indeed a precious gift."

We were to grade the students according to: content, pronunciation, fluency, body language, their unprepared speech, and integrating effects. It was an honor to be a part of this competition and truly rewarding to see the results of our efforts at teachers here. Below are some photos and videos from the event. Enjoy!