speech.

this is my second-prize winning speech. lol.
major help from sine, and the amazing rg ppl whose dramanite i was at instead of writing this.
this was written AFTER the comp, so i factored in all my spontaneity.


good morning ladies and gentlemen, as you have heard i am eleanor lim from dunman high.

now if i were twofaced i would be wearing this one (point at my face) or maybe that one or... yeah yours... oops sorry youre a guy (play to audience).
my IDEAL other face would have... lets see. large eyes... a small delicate nose, long curving eyelashes. in fact i would probably even call myself something flighty like Angelica or Clarissa or Caroline.
however i am presenting to you now none of those three: i am presenting eleanor lim.

being rather outspoken i have, on occasion, said the wrong thing at the wrong time to the wrong person in the wrong place. if i had been more timid and softspoken, i might not have made that mistake. if i wanted to be more (acting) pleasing... more accomodating... i would be sweet, i would be well-behaved; i would speak when spoken to, be seen and not heard... and of course giggle discreetly at the appropriate moments *giggle, ala bimbo.*
thankfully that is an IF. i hypothetical me.
i HAVE made mistakes aplenty, and i know i am far from perfect.

its strange how this obsession with perfection has been formed.

as human beings were are defined by our imperfections, we make mistakes to learn from them.
sometimes people spend more time preventing these mistakes and maintaining the facade that we forget to develop the real person behind it.
someday they will realise that what they have ended up with is exactly what they started out with: someone who hides behind a mask so as to NOT make mistakes and therefore making the worst mistake of all: not being honest (pause) TO THEMSELVES. they do not ever change, in this manner, they become stagnant.
and as we all know, stagnant water breeds mosquitoes.
thus they become festering pools of larvae-ridden water-- hidden behind a wafer-thin, picturePERFECT idealisation of self.

therefore perfection is an impossible ideal.
the human condition is RIDDLED with imperfections. after all, are we not simply hairless apes devoid of any useful adaptations whatsoever? we have no wings to fly, no gills to swim, not even fur to keep us warm.
we ARE the sum of our flaws. our imperfections give us character, our character makes us different, and being different makes us unique.
being different and unique are NOT, contrary to popular belief, bad things. however some disagree, spending their whole lives obsessesed with fitting in. they are so consumed with becoming perfect by everyone's standards that it becomes almost a terminal illness.
we may not have wings or fur, but we have larger brains to think faster, we walk on our hind legs for greater mobility, we even have opposing thumbs to help us send lighting fast sms'ES. we cant be that useless, after all we ARE the dominant species, the next big thing after the dinosaurs.

what i am saying, is that we should celebrate our individuality, because that is what makes us more than simply the next animal in the food chain.
Because only once we accept who we really are can we see how futile it was to try and sculpt another identity based on other peoples beliefs and expectations.
and that is why i stand before you now, FOR Eleanor Lim, as Eleanor Lim, complete in all my imperfections, but this is still the face i would choose to wear.

thankyou very much.