Speech script

Have you ever done something that failed you, both physically and mentally? Well, I have. I’ve done something that harmed both my health and hope, hope I had as a pure youngster full of passion and expectations.

A few days after the summer of 2006 faded away, I was told that my aunt had invited my family to Japan for a trip, which made me feek excited as I was fond of Japanese culture. For instance, my favorite animation characters were from Japan. Plus, many kinds of food that I loved originated from that country. These were enough to make a nine years old like me full of passion.

So, from the day following the announcement, I started preparing for my trip. I was so passionate that I even tried to learn Japanese by looking up words with my dictionary. Sadly, my language learning strategy was extremely ineffective, so all I actually learned after a few days were the most basic expressions like ‘Nan-da-yo’, ‘So-deskka’ and ‘Arigato’, which are still the only expressions I know. Even though this was the reality, I was really looking forward to my trip which was then only about two weeks left.

Time flew until the mid-term test, and there were only about three days left before I could sense it. I remember having spent the remaining days very cheerful and carefree, which is probably why I didn’t care about the due date of the milk I had with the cereal the day before the trip. Unfortunately enough, I already devoured two bowls of cereal when my mother started scolding me for drinking something that should have been thrown away at least one and a half weeks ago. I was able to assuage her by saying that everything would be fine, as the milk was in the fridge.

If everything was okay, however, I wouldn’t even be saying these things here right now. From the very next day, when my family arrived in Tokyo, I started to suffer from food poisoning. It was three hours after the arrival in Japan when the pain struck me. Imagine…I was just an innocent, pure child who was nine years old, crying and screaming, feeling as if every part of my organs were being torn apart. My body temperature peaked 39.0 degrees Celsius. The situation got worse as time passed, and we eventually had to call the emergency.

After I arrived at the hospital, I had to get the IV injection, and as I expected, I found out that my body was not in a good condition. I remember being told that the number of white blood cells in my body had risen by more than six times than usual. The doctors told me to get enough rest, and not to eat any kind of food that might stimulate my organs. Thanks to that advice, my family’s schedule for the trip in Japan was immediately canceled. Instead, we had to spend the week in my aunt’s house, constantly checking the state of my body. I was totally depressed about this because I had high expectations about this trip. I even prepared a list of 20 things I wanted to do in Japan, but only one of them was accomplished. Arriving safely in Japan. I couldn’t even grasp a chance to fulfill the other wishes. I was mentally broken, and it took me quite a long time to relieve the shock I got from it.

From this, I learned a lesson that I should be cautious about everything that I do. Everything I do, not only in important moments, but also in daily life. I have learned so thoroughly from this experience that one tiny mistake, such as ignoring the due date, can result in a disastrous consequence. We experience this kind of things a lot in our lives. We make mistakes when having conversation, taking tests, and keeping promises. These mistakes can be reduced if we just care a bit more. Keep in mind that the most disastrous incidents usually do not happen because of the biggest mistakes, but because of the small or normal mistakes that occurred just because we didn’t care. So, be cautious. Think about the consequences before you unconsciously do something. Even though this might make our lives a bit complicated and noisy, it would someday help us thoroughly.