Yet another winning speech this week. Kudos to Mun Yin. We look forward to your next speech.
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Good evening fellow toastmaster and guest, my name is Cheah Mun Yin, from ISS division. I have been with ING over 8 years since year 2001.
I am dedicated in supporting SMART400 systems, together with 5 other members in Solution Enterprise Team. Yes, we are the well known SMART team!!!
My Ice breaker speech title today is ‘Story of myself’…
Does anyone know where is ‘Ho Cheng Yu’ ? Maybe most of you heard about Samping / Hang Tuah Star LRT station/Pudu Jail; ‘Ho Cheng Yu’ is just the notorious place in between both. I stay there since I was born together with my parents, 3 of my sister and my youngest brother, until the day I get married.
I like the place very much, not because it is just 5 minutes drive or 20 minutes walk to all the shopping center in KL, it has all my little childhood memories, good or bad, even the scary ones.
My father operates a family kopitiam business in ‘Ho Cheng Yu’, his personal assistance “My mom” helps him in the shop and with another 4 little girls.
The most exciting experience that I have at this place is all the gangster activities. When I was 5-6 years olds, I like the hear people scream ‘Run, gangsters are fighting’, then my father will quickly close the door gate and we will peek from the side of the door to see two gang of people running around; some with blood and follow by another gang of people holding water pipe and stick of wood. Ok… this is not the movie story, this is my true experience.
When I was young, I do not play with dolls/toys because we can’t afford these luxurious items. Outdoor sport is my favorite, where I always gang up with my sisters, cousins and neighbors running around playing hide and seek, to catch grasshopper, spiders, tadpole and fishes. We love our play site so much, that we will fight with other group of children to protect our territory.
I went to Kuen Cheng (1) for my primary school and Bandaraya girl school for my Secondary. During my school days I am very active in sport. I am representing the school for Backetball, Netball, long jump, high jump and 400m run.
I feel proud when school headmaster announces my name for practice or competition when others sitting in the boring classroom.
I love sport so much and that’s why my annual report card results are always in the color of burning red. It hurts too when my father sees it.
With my parents’ strong support in my education, I am glad to complete my bachelor degree studying abroad in University of Southern Queensland Australia graduated in 1996.
During my college time, emm… I met a geek, he is my first and last boyfriend and my husband. He was a computer lab tutor while I was among a few assisting as computer lab coordinator. We were study and work together since the day we met till we get married after 9 long years.
We married in September 9, year 1999 (and I think or may be on 9:09:09 in the morning). We have 1/2/3 & 4 lovely kids. Yes, I am a super mom of 4 children, not many people believe it, do you? They are 3 cuties girls with one handsome boy, and they are my proud little angels.
Fun and excitement are always part of my life which I loving it. Though there were times of sour and spicy, and still I am enjoying it so much.
Finally this is what I want to say, love yourself, enjoy your live, be who you are, and do what your best…
Showing posts with label Ice breaker. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ice breaker. Show all posts
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
CELUP IN MALAYSIA
Another print worthy winning speech from one of the new members. Congratulations Yazlin. Well done!
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Celup in English means dipped or in this context I mean ‘of mixed parentage’.
It was a cold wet night on the 26th day of January 1985. A couple was awoken in the wee hours of the morning by the sudden labour pains of the wife of the man. He quickly rushed her to the Ipoh Specialist Center and within a few hours, a baby girl was born. That girl was named Yazlin. Her name was a combination of the man and the wife’s names. The following year, she had a sister in the family.
Yazlin was a bright child. She was very inquisitive and always wondered about how things in her surroundings work. At the age of five, she was placed in a kindergarten and that was among the first places she learned to socialize with other children. She always had a passion for music. It was at that kindergarten where she first learnt how to play the piano which she eventually completed her final grade of piano at the age of 14. Life was carefree and blissful there.
At the age of seven, she entered Standard 1 at the Main Convent Ipoh. It was quite a change for her to adapt to because coming from a family of mixed parentage with an English speaking background, many a time she felt like she was confused of her identity. More often than not, she would rather say that she isn’t Malay nor is she Chinese but should be categorized under ‘lain-lain’ which means ‘others’ or races that do not specifically belong to a category. She would also prefer to be categorised as ‘English’.
One would take for granted that a Malay child would be able to converse in the Malay language. However, little Yazlin couldn’t speak Malay except for a few simple words especially during her first year in Primary school. On the other hand, her maternal family is Hakka Chinese. She grew up listening to her mother speaking to her grandmother in the Hakka dialect. Communication between Yazlin and her grandmother is something worth observing. It is like a chicken and a duck communicating but somehow they understand each other. Her po-po (grandmother) would ask, “Yazlin, Sit Pau Mei?(what do you want to eat? in Hakka)” and she would answer in English, “I want chicken rice”, even until today.
In secondary school, Yazlin was a geeky person. She was as tall as a pole, as skinny as a stick with big frizzy hair and she wore glasses and braces. She felt like she didn’t really fit into any group and had some minor self-esteem problems. However, she always tried to hide those feelings and put on a different persona on the outside. She hid this well by joining the school choral speaking team, choir, English Language Society and also Girl Guides. In fact, she was also a school prefect. It was also during this time she got really involved in tenpin bowling. By Form 3, freshly roped into the national team, she was sent to Egypt for her first international assignment. Through these international exposures, she slowly shed her square image and gained self-confidence. One day, she looked into the mirror and thought to herself, “Hey, I don’t look so bad”.
Looking back, she realizes that her life experiences as a celup has taught her a lot about appreciating the Malaysian cultures and she is proud to be ‘Made in Malaysia’. So who is Yazlin? I am Yazlin.
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Celup in English means dipped or in this context I mean ‘of mixed parentage’.
It was a cold wet night on the 26th day of January 1985. A couple was awoken in the wee hours of the morning by the sudden labour pains of the wife of the man. He quickly rushed her to the Ipoh Specialist Center and within a few hours, a baby girl was born. That girl was named Yazlin. Her name was a combination of the man and the wife’s names. The following year, she had a sister in the family.
Yazlin was a bright child. She was very inquisitive and always wondered about how things in her surroundings work. At the age of five, she was placed in a kindergarten and that was among the first places she learned to socialize with other children. She always had a passion for music. It was at that kindergarten where she first learnt how to play the piano which she eventually completed her final grade of piano at the age of 14. Life was carefree and blissful there.
At the age of seven, she entered Standard 1 at the Main Convent Ipoh. It was quite a change for her to adapt to because coming from a family of mixed parentage with an English speaking background, many a time she felt like she was confused of her identity. More often than not, she would rather say that she isn’t Malay nor is she Chinese but should be categorized under ‘lain-lain’ which means ‘others’ or races that do not specifically belong to a category. She would also prefer to be categorised as ‘English’.
One would take for granted that a Malay child would be able to converse in the Malay language. However, little Yazlin couldn’t speak Malay except for a few simple words especially during her first year in Primary school. On the other hand, her maternal family is Hakka Chinese. She grew up listening to her mother speaking to her grandmother in the Hakka dialect. Communication between Yazlin and her grandmother is something worth observing. It is like a chicken and a duck communicating but somehow they understand each other. Her po-po (grandmother) would ask, “Yazlin, Sit Pau Mei?(what do you want to eat? in Hakka)” and she would answer in English, “I want chicken rice”, even until today.
In secondary school, Yazlin was a geeky person. She was as tall as a pole, as skinny as a stick with big frizzy hair and she wore glasses and braces. She felt like she didn’t really fit into any group and had some minor self-esteem problems. However, she always tried to hide those feelings and put on a different persona on the outside. She hid this well by joining the school choral speaking team, choir, English Language Society and also Girl Guides. In fact, she was also a school prefect. It was also during this time she got really involved in tenpin bowling. By Form 3, freshly roped into the national team, she was sent to Egypt for her first international assignment. Through these international exposures, she slowly shed her square image and gained self-confidence. One day, she looked into the mirror and thought to herself, “Hey, I don’t look so bad”.
Looking back, she realizes that her life experiences as a celup has taught her a lot about appreciating the Malaysian cultures and she is proud to be ‘Made in Malaysia’. So who is Yazlin? I am Yazlin.
Saturday, August 8, 2009
The Coincidental IT Professional
Here's the winning speech for this week. An ice-breaker from our very own IT professional, Mr. Teh KL.
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The Coincidental IT Professional
Toastmaster of the Evening and my fellow toastmasters. Good evening.
Introduction
From the title, you should already know that I will be talking about my ambition. Well, what most of you see in me today is a consummate IT professional but I am using the term coincidental here to highlight the fact it was not by design.
I was born into a large traditional family of 5 girls followed by 3 boys. My 5 elder sisters didn’t have a lot of opportunity for education as my parents basically pinned their hopes on the boys.
As a result, we were all imbued with the thoughts that we should study hard and be a “somebody” when we grow up. From a very young age, I have always wanted to be a doctor.
Why am I not a doctor?
Body
Let me take you back 27 years to 1982 when I was doing my South Australian Matriculation in Taylor’s College. Yeah, I know, that’s how long it has been!
In my application for university admission, I duly put medicine as my 1st and 2nd choices and IT as my 3rd and 4th choices. Why IT? I am not sure but I remembered being told that IT is the job for the future.
To do medicine in Australia, you need an aggregate score of at least 430 out of 500. You see, I have always done well academically and 430 was certainly not beyond me.
However, I didn’t account for the fact that I was doing English Literature rather than English as a 2nd Language in my matriculation program. That means we were learning about Shakespeare rather than grammar, vocabulary and essay writing.
To cut the story short, I failed my English paper and only managed 49 out of 100 giving me a total aggregate score of 394.
I spent 7 years in Australia to learn all I need about IT.
When I came back to Malaysia, my first job was not in IT but to be a banker in Citibank. As a management trainee, I was going through training in various parts of the bank including corporate banking, treasury and consumer banking.
Six months later, I decided that a career in banking is not for me and quit Citibank to venture into business at the age of 26.
Even in business, my 1st venture was not in IT but in education due to influence from my sister who were (and still are) running very successful education institutions.
I did that for 4 years before I exited the education business and made a decent profit. More importantly, this is also where and when I landed the most important catch in my life – my wife!
From the education business, I went on to join the IT subsidiary of INTI to develop the IT business for the education market. Finally, I am going to back my roots in IT. As I was offered a stake in the company, I viewed this as a hybrid of doing business and developing my career.
It was during my tenure here that I first came into contact with ING as a vendor. I also had the privilege to meet the person who eventually played an instrumental role in my career development and personal growth.
My involvement with INTI lasted 4 years before I left and joined ING at the age of 34. So, you can see that I started my career late in life due to my misadventures in the business world.
I have been working here in ING for 10 years and my career progression has been good so far.
Conclusion
If you are a strong believer in karma, you will accept that everything happens for a predestined reason. Like when I failed my English paper, maybe it was because I was not meant to be a doctor. Or when I joined INTI and did the project for ING, maybe it was because I was meant to be in ING!
Well, my title says coincidental which means I am not into karma. I believe that life is often littered with events that require us to make choices along the way. The events and the choices that we make shape the life we live today and in the future.
Whether its karma or coincidental, I can have no regrets.
=================================================
The Coincidental IT Professional
Toastmaster of the Evening and my fellow toastmasters. Good evening.
Introduction
From the title, you should already know that I will be talking about my ambition. Well, what most of you see in me today is a consummate IT professional but I am using the term coincidental here to highlight the fact it was not by design.
I was born into a large traditional family of 5 girls followed by 3 boys. My 5 elder sisters didn’t have a lot of opportunity for education as my parents basically pinned their hopes on the boys.
As a result, we were all imbued with the thoughts that we should study hard and be a “somebody” when we grow up. From a very young age, I have always wanted to be a doctor.
Why am I not a doctor?
Body
Let me take you back 27 years to 1982 when I was doing my South Australian Matriculation in Taylor’s College. Yeah, I know, that’s how long it has been!
In my application for university admission, I duly put medicine as my 1st and 2nd choices and IT as my 3rd and 4th choices. Why IT? I am not sure but I remembered being told that IT is the job for the future.
To do medicine in Australia, you need an aggregate score of at least 430 out of 500. You see, I have always done well academically and 430 was certainly not beyond me.
However, I didn’t account for the fact that I was doing English Literature rather than English as a 2nd Language in my matriculation program. That means we were learning about Shakespeare rather than grammar, vocabulary and essay writing.
To cut the story short, I failed my English paper and only managed 49 out of 100 giving me a total aggregate score of 394.
I spent 7 years in Australia to learn all I need about IT.
When I came back to Malaysia, my first job was not in IT but to be a banker in Citibank. As a management trainee, I was going through training in various parts of the bank including corporate banking, treasury and consumer banking.
Six months later, I decided that a career in banking is not for me and quit Citibank to venture into business at the age of 26.
Even in business, my 1st venture was not in IT but in education due to influence from my sister who were (and still are) running very successful education institutions.
I did that for 4 years before I exited the education business and made a decent profit. More importantly, this is also where and when I landed the most important catch in my life – my wife!
From the education business, I went on to join the IT subsidiary of INTI to develop the IT business for the education market. Finally, I am going to back my roots in IT. As I was offered a stake in the company, I viewed this as a hybrid of doing business and developing my career.
It was during my tenure here that I first came into contact with ING as a vendor. I also had the privilege to meet the person who eventually played an instrumental role in my career development and personal growth.
My involvement with INTI lasted 4 years before I left and joined ING at the age of 34. So, you can see that I started my career late in life due to my misadventures in the business world.
I have been working here in ING for 10 years and my career progression has been good so far.
Conclusion
If you are a strong believer in karma, you will accept that everything happens for a predestined reason. Like when I failed my English paper, maybe it was because I was not meant to be a doctor. Or when I joined INTI and did the project for ING, maybe it was because I was meant to be in ING!
Well, my title says coincidental which means I am not into karma. I believe that life is often littered with events that require us to make choices along the way. The events and the choices that we make shape the life we live today and in the future.
Whether its karma or coincidental, I can have no regrets.
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Blue ribbon for the girl with the most names
"Good Evening Ladies and Gentlemen, Fellow Toastmasters and Guests..."
That's the opening line for my Toastmasters IceBreaker Speech that I keep practising for the pass 3 days in front of a few of my closer colleagues, so much so, that they run away from me each time I go near them. And thus each time I only get to practise this opening line. Nobody seems interested in my toastmasters ice breaker speech. Yes, ice breaker speech can be boring for some....
So, I tried to practise in front of little b and he thought I was playing a game with him and started acting out the Sam Witwicky Classroom scene in Transformers 2, whereby Sam had a mental breakdown and started talking gibberish.
And Mr. Big B, not to pleased with me laughing at his name in my speech, also avoided me whenever I tried to practise in front of him, and gave me weird advice, like doing the Michael Jackson moonwalk while doing my speech or doing the human boom-box to catch people's attention like those who auditioned for the American Idol.
Anyway, all my "hard work" of practising inside my car while driving to work these 2 mornings have paid off well because tonight I won the Blue Ribbon for the Best Speaker for Prepared Speech. I guess I won because I was the only one who didn't use any notes and my speech was presented in an interesting "storytelling" mode instead of the usual "chronological introduction to my life" kind of presentation. (*Note: The icebreaker speech is a 4-6 minute speech to introduce the speaker to the rest of the club members.)
What makes winning this award all the more special is, I was up against 6 other more "seasoned" speakers as they hold positions in the office which required them to give presentations on a daily basis while I seldom (if ever) talk in the office. (Boss, if you are reading this, please do not start assigning me with presentation work, ok?).
Actually, you cannot imagine how estatic I am now with my achievements tonight. Yes, it feels great having so many people congratulating you and clapping for you. Kinda motivating in a way, especially for the other newbies seeing a nobody like me can actually be 1 up against all the other giants or "hot favourites".
I just reviewed my video, and I found that my speech wasn't that great but I feel it was still one of the best among those who spoke tonight. (Actually, I think my boss's speech was very good too and I probably won due to popularity vote, but hey, isn't this world about popularity nowadays - just look at all the reality shows they dish out to us on the idiot box which we call TV). Whichever way it is, the bottomline is I still won the ribbon, and tonight was MY NIGHT. Wooo Hooo!! Yeeee Haaaa!!! AHAHHAHAHAHA (Allow me to gloat for just once, ok? This doesn't happen to me very often... :)
So I guess I will bask in this euphoria for another 2 weeks before they crown another Blue Ribbon winner for the next meeting. But right now, having the best speech for the night is ....... priceless.
==============================================
Here's the speech I delivered earlier tonight...
A rose, by any other name, is just as beautiful.
Good evening ladies and gentlemen, fellow toastmasters and guests.
It is very intimidating for me to stand up here to talk in front of all of you after all those superb speeches given by my colleagues. Everyone knows that I am a shy person, and it took me a lot of courage to stand up here and open up myself. Even as I speak now, my heart is beating like [thud thud thud] 100 times a minute and my brain is working 1000 harder to control myself from having a heart attack. In fact, I think that there should be another role introduced into the Toastmasters Club, which is the Paramedic Role, to save people when they actually have a heart attack and collapse right here at the lectern.
Ok, now that I didn’t collapse, I have no choice but to continue with my speech. The title of my speech is “A rose by any other names is just as beautiful”. What better way to introduce myself than with my name. Once upon a time, not so very long ago, (I won’t tell you how long ago because it will reveal my age), my half-Japanese grandmother wanted to name me, Keiko Kawashima, meaning “the adored one on the river islands”. But the name on my IC, the last I checked, is XXX *(Censored to protect the writer's identity). My Chinese father, insisted on my Chinese roots and named me XXX instead. What does it mean? I don’t really know actually because I don’t read Chinese. My parents tell me that they got the name from the fortune teller when I was born.
That's the opening line for my Toastmasters IceBreaker Speech that I keep practising for the pass 3 days in front of a few of my closer colleagues, so much so, that they run away from me each time I go near them. And thus each time I only get to practise this opening line. Nobody seems interested in my toastmasters ice breaker speech. Yes, ice breaker speech can be boring for some....
So, I tried to practise in front of little b and he thought I was playing a game with him and started acting out the Sam Witwicky Classroom scene in Transformers 2, whereby Sam had a mental breakdown and started talking gibberish.
And Mr. Big B, not to pleased with me laughing at his name in my speech, also avoided me whenever I tried to practise in front of him, and gave me weird advice, like doing the Michael Jackson moonwalk while doing my speech or doing the human boom-box to catch people's attention like those who auditioned for the American Idol.
Anyway, all my "hard work" of practising inside my car while driving to work these 2 mornings have paid off well because tonight I won the Blue Ribbon for the Best Speaker for Prepared Speech. I guess I won because I was the only one who didn't use any notes and my speech was presented in an interesting "storytelling" mode instead of the usual "chronological introduction to my life" kind of presentation. (*Note: The icebreaker speech is a 4-6 minute speech to introduce the speaker to the rest of the club members.)
What makes winning this award all the more special is, I was up against 6 other more "seasoned" speakers as they hold positions in the office which required them to give presentations on a daily basis while I seldom (if ever) talk in the office. (Boss, if you are reading this, please do not start assigning me with presentation work, ok?).
Actually, you cannot imagine how estatic I am now with my achievements tonight. Yes, it feels great having so many people congratulating you and clapping for you. Kinda motivating in a way, especially for the other newbies seeing a nobody like me can actually be 1 up against all the other giants or "hot favourites".
I just reviewed my video, and I found that my speech wasn't that great but I feel it was still one of the best among those who spoke tonight. (Actually, I think my boss's speech was very good too and I probably won due to popularity vote, but hey, isn't this world about popularity nowadays - just look at all the reality shows they dish out to us on the idiot box which we call TV). Whichever way it is, the bottomline is I still won the ribbon, and tonight was MY NIGHT. Wooo Hooo!! Yeeee Haaaa!!! AHAHHAHAHAHA (Allow me to gloat for just once, ok? This doesn't happen to me very often... :)
So I guess I will bask in this euphoria for another 2 weeks before they crown another Blue Ribbon winner for the next meeting. But right now, having the best speech for the night is ....... priceless.
==============================================
Here's the speech I delivered earlier tonight...
A rose, by any other name, is just as beautiful.
Good evening ladies and gentlemen, fellow toastmasters and guests.
It is very intimidating for me to stand up here to talk in front of all of you after all those superb speeches given by my colleagues. Everyone knows that I am a shy person, and it took me a lot of courage to stand up here and open up myself. Even as I speak now, my heart is beating like [thud thud thud] 100 times a minute and my brain is working 1000 harder to control myself from having a heart attack. In fact, I think that there should be another role introduced into the Toastmasters Club, which is the Paramedic Role, to save people when they actually have a heart attack and collapse right here at the lectern.
Ok, now that I didn’t collapse, I have no choice but to continue with my speech. The title of my speech is “A rose by any other names is just as beautiful”. What better way to introduce myself than with my name. Once upon a time, not so very long ago, (I won’t tell you how long ago because it will reveal my age), my half-Japanese grandmother wanted to name me, Keiko Kawashima, meaning “the adored one on the river islands”. But the name on my IC, the last I checked, is XXX *(Censored to protect the writer's identity). My Chinese father, insisted on my Chinese roots and named me XXX instead. What does it mean? I don’t really know actually because I don’t read Chinese. My parents tell me that they got the name from the fortune teller when I was born.
The told me that my name was carefully and painstakingly chosen and they had to go through so much hassle to book the famous fortune teller in town just to get me my name. But I don’t believe them, because much later, I found out that my name is similar to the Taiwanese singer, Teressa Teng and she was very famous around the time I was born, thus I think they just conveniently took her name and gave it to me.
So all through my childhood, and teenage life, my friends call me by my Chinese name. Then I went to college and suddenly there was a fad in having an English name. I resisted the temptations of having one until later I went over to UK to further my studies. And then Oh My God!!! Most of my foreign classmates could not remember my Chinese name and had difficulty pronouncing it, and it sounded so horrifying that I don’t even want to mention it. In order not to allow them to further degrade my beautiful name, I chose to be called Kelly. And that is how I am better known as in the REAL world… as Kelly Kong.
REAL world? Yes, you heard me right. Because I live in another world too - the cyber world. I am very active online. I participate in forums, and online chats and have facebook, friendster and twitter accounts to keep in touch with my friends and family. Naturally, being a cyber citizen, I also keep a blog to log all the happenings in my life. One of the main reasons why I kept a blog was because I have very bad memory, thus I like to write down all the good things that has happened into the blog. Yes, it’s a little like keeping an online diary, so if you would like to get to know me better, you can just go to my blog and read all about me. Incidentally, it was my blog that landed me the task as the editor for ING Leadership Toastmaster’s Club newsletter. You can comment on my writings when you read the newsletter when it is published later. If it’s good, let me know. I’d try to pretend to be humble when you praise me. If you don’t think it’s good, you can just keep quiet. Haha, kidding, constructive criticism is welcome as I am always looking for ways to improve myself.
Back to my name. In the cyberworld, I go by the pseudonym Kelly Rivers. Why Rivers? My surname Kong means Rivers in Chinese.
And then there is one name that I seldom use or try to avoid using. I went on to marry my husband and automatically I inherited his name and guess what? His surname is Bean. Mr. Bean. So I become Mrs. Bean. I don’t think I need to explain why I don’t use this name.
So as you can see, I have many names, but essentially there’s only one me. I am the same nice person irregardless of all the names you call me, just like the saying goes, a rose by any other names, is just as beautiful.
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