How to Start

This piece was written as my first speech project for Toastmasters International – Digerati Club. Two hours prior my speech, I rashly tried to compress all of these words inside my memory pouch, and it was sure-fire that I would inevitably forget some of my lines. Not sure if I did great delivering this one, however I did get some positive feedback from my evaluator and from some of my fellow toastmasters but of course there is always a space for improvement. 

So here it starts:

I’ve been told to create this piece for you guys to know me better, and to be honest, the first question that popped out of my head was “how can I make these people know me with just 1 year of actually living after graduation? I’m just 23, where do I even start?”

Well, let me start by apologizing for making you all feel old.

Yes, you heard it right. I am 23 years old and I graduated last year from a 5-year Architecture course.

You’ll be surprised why I took up Architecture because it wasn’t arts or any artsy skill that led me to take up this course, it was my love for travelling.   During our family travels which are mostly by land, I would always sit and even fight my sisters for the window side of the car-its because it fascinates me to see how unique buildings and houses are from different places that our car would pass by. Through time and frequent travels to other places, my love for the unique designs of buildings develop into a dream of creating my own house, a unique church, a school and a housing development for the homeless. These four dream projects became the corner stones of my own Architecture.

Now, you might be wondering how I ended up here in Dubai. Good question, because that’s my question too!  All I know is that 2 years ago, on my final year in college, I chose a thesis study about creating a one-stop shop center for Overseas Filipino Workers, with no clue of being one.

I was born in a very big loving family. I say big because I had 10 aunts and uncles from my father’s side, 11 aunts and uncles from my mother’s side and 6 brothers and sisters. If that’s not big enough, well it’s because I forgot to mention that each of us has our own twin… Just kidding. :p My family has been my comfort zone for years, they are my security, my confidant and my  source of happiness.

My father is a patriot, he served the country for years and im sure he would like to do it over again. My mom has never been abroad or any place else aside from the nearby malls. She stayed in our house for as long as I can remember. I have two older sisters that are both married and successful in their own ways, but, with no plans of going abroad,  my older brothers have been in and out of our country, and they both say the same thing about the nausea and homesickness they face being away from the source of their strength. These are the reasons why i had no clue that I’ll be an Overseas Filipino Worker as well. I didn’t thought that I would have the courage, especially at a young age with a very motivating and inspiring family, to even get out, far from my comfort zone.

Yet, 5 months ago, I did. When my aunt called from here in Dubai telling me that she’d be having her vacation in the Philippines and asked me if I wanted to come back with her and start my journey abroad, I said yes. I immediately resigned from my 6 months old job, (by immediately I mean right after the call from my aunt, I drafted my resignation letter, delivered it to the HR the next day and left the office the following day.)

It was a leap of faith!

I had two weeks to prepare all my documents (which by the way, my documents are all ready at the time because they were recently used for my Australia visa application) and a week to say my good byes and see you laters to my family. Luckily enough, just after two weeks of looking for a job here, I found a very good one.

So, to answer the question of how I ended up here, I think it’s because i did one of the most courageous acts I had ever done in my life which is to say yes to the unknown… and also because the Australian embassy in our country declined my visa application twice.

Now I’ve answered the question of how I ended up here, but how did I end up delivering this speech to everyone? That is also a good question! But I might need to reserve the answer for that on my next speech because like everyone else who had their own share of firsts including their first speech project, I realized that I can’t end this speech yet, because this is actually just the beginning of my public speaking journey.

Thank you and good evening.

Over to you.