Written by neobita | 16 July 2009
Posted in Life - Neobita's Life

I have been appointed my first task as a toastmaster - The Ice Breaker in which the objectives of the speech is to:
- Introduce me in speaking in front of an audience.
- To detect my strengh and weakness
- To tell something about myself

I read from somewhere that usually the Ice Breaker speech should be divided into 3 parts. And those parts are:
The Opening
One should start with an attention grabbing line, such as "well, here I am, just joined the club, I'm the one sitting quitely at the back, seldomly initiated a conversation and never joined on the table topics"

The Body
Share about 3 pr 4 points to discuss. About your school, your upbringing, your passion, your hobby, your interest, your career. But try not to get carried away and try not to give too much detailed information. And finally, wrapped the body up with a clever line.

The Conclusion
This can be a line you memorized or a quote from famous figures, example such as, "Set your goal to the star, as you'll might land on the mountains"

Notes and Tips
Try to show pictures, share your dream, engage the audience like you are story telling, make them want to listen more and also, try to practice your speech once or twice in front of families, close friends or just out loud if you're alone, it will help you gain confidence. And finally, try not to use notes, but if you must, try not to look at it too much and connect with the audience with gestures, eye contact and a firm control of the volume of your voice. Most importantly, have fun while you're at it.

After you have completed your ice breaker speech, you will gain a brick in the wall of public speaking. Now, you are ready for the table topics!

 

I have finally prepared a speech for my presentation. Though when I present the speech, it is abit different from the text I wrote. That is because I didn't use any notes at all.

Anyway, here's the original text:

My Corridors of Time

Opening:

Good afternoon fellow toastmasters and guests. Is it cold in here? Or it’s just my hand?  Anyway, here I am, doing my Ice breaker despite my nervousness and my insecurity of speaking in front of an audience. Well, as the theme for this year is Conquering Your Fear, I’ll try my very best to project myself towards that goal. I will let you into my corridors of time; I will open the doors one by one. So please enjoy your tour with me.

Door 1: Childhood. I’m the only child from my family; I live in an environment in which my parents speaks English at home and we often watch the series Dallas, house on the prairies and some other series . My mother is from an English school. She is a fan of the classic songs those evergreen ones like Elvis Presley, the rolling stone, and the likes.  The lyrics of the songs managed to get itself to my sub conscious mind, and unconsciously, I began rhyming the songs in my mouth. I began uttering the words when I was in standard 2. Words such as love me warm and tender dear, the song by Paul Anka, yesterday, love was such an easy games to play and one of my favorites was tell Laura I love her the latter two of which I do not know the singer’s name. Well, back then, the overused cassette was my first English syllabus.

Door 2: High School. After I reach High school, my interest changed from English to Video Games. Back then, kids my age reads manga (Japanese comics) and play video games. The video games title back then was dominated by the Japanese developers – surely you have heard of the giant video game company Nintendo or in English “leave luck to heaven”. High school was the time when I engaged myself extremely in video games. I spent minimum 12 hours per day playing games.  The game that I remembered most is Sonic the Hedgehog. It is because of this extracurricular activity that I did not manage to perform very well in high school. Although, all is not lost, as High School is where I met my first love AKATA my wife. Because of my interest in video games and computer games, my mother decided to send me to a college where I will learn about Information Technology.

Door 3: College. Then I reach college. It was in college that I focused more on learning about the untapped potential / output of playing the video game. Being a gamer all my life, I tend to know what design, what interaction that user will like and will not like when we create an application. This ability has gained me some grounds in which I started to perform well in my studies, and projects. When people like the work that you produce, you gain confidence, simple math.  I am now, a designer

Door 4: First Job. Then my first job. I work as a technician in Shah Alam. I kill virus, format computers, install and uninstall windows and many other works that is totally different from my designing background. It was at this time that I got married to my beautiful wife. Remember the one I told you when I was in high school? Well, that’s the one.

Then I got offered a job here in LHDN as a programmer in JTM.  Programming is a totally new universe to me and I needed a whole year to attune myself to it. Luckily, I have a very understanding boss and helpful co workers here in LHDN. It is at this time that my wife and I were blessed with a beautiful baby girl.

Here we are, at the end of the corridor and at the end of the tour. The corridor runs vast, as vast as the knowledge that I hope to gain. That’s why I’m here, to learn to speak, to share ideas and I truly thank you again for inviting me to become a toastmaster. And for that, I conclude my speech with this. “Roses are red, violets are blue, Thanks for listening, hope to learn from you” Thank you.

 

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