Who Inspires You?

Who inspires you?

          My 19 year old sister, lives in New Jersey and the last time she came in for a visit she brought her friend Lindsey. I was very nervous about meeting Lindsey because I did not know how she would react to my disability. Much to my surprise, she was sweet, kind, and my limp did not phase her at all We talked a lot about life, choices, how I cannot ever be fixed. and her life, and how she was living in the fast lane, how she was drinking a lot to mask her family problems, going to a lot of parties, and the people she was hanging out with. Because she told me that she didn’t necessarily always want to get drunk but the people she hung out with did which made her feel like she had to also. She was interested in my thoughts on living carelessly, driving, living with a disability, and drinking. Lindsey and I had a bunch of deep conversations; in our many talks I told her my plan for the future, to become a motivational speaker about my accident and my recovery and overcoming adversity, in hopes that a lot of people could take away different things from my speech.

          Then before they left I promised Lindsey her and I would stay in contact with each other.  On February 2^nd, 2013, Lindsey facebook messaged me asked me if I e-mail you questions on your wreck and recovery, will you fill them out for me? I was excited about this, but then asked her why.  She responded that at the college she is attending she is taking a public speaking course. Then She told me that her first speech assignment is to write a speech on someone she admires or finds inspirational. Out of all the people she has ever met in her life, she chose me! When I got the questions, I carefully read and answered each one answering each question the best that I could, because I was crying, happy tears, because was such an honor to have her chose me. She e-mailed a copy of her speech to me so I will share a few highlights of her speech below.

            She briefly described the accident night, not in great detail. The next line makes me cry every time I read it, “Today I'd like to speak to you in honor of the most resilient, optimistic, and inspirational person I know: Sydney Basil.” Then, she decided to choose words from Webster’s Dictionary, She chose three words to describe me. The words are: “Resilient-A tendency to recover or adjust easily to misfortune or change, Optimism-a tendency to expect the best possible outcome, or dwell on the most hopeful aspect of a situation, Along with all of the strength and courage it took to recover from this experience.” “Sydney has always managed to keep a smile on her face, Strength and courage. This leads us to the last quality I've chosen, which is Inspiration-the action or power of moving the intellect or emotions. Her number one goal, is to remind each and every one of us if I can do this, so can you.” “Through these words Sydney has obtained an untouchable power, and made a positive impression on numerous people. By sharing her story, Sydney has been able to touch people's lives, especially mine."

         I am so touched by her words because she is still young and I cannot believe she saw all that in me the first and only time we met. It makes me very happy to know, that what I do can leave that large of an impression on someone.

          I looked up how to write a good informational speech. First you need to pick a topic then you need to figure what part about that certain topic you want to cover, since you have to keep in mind your time. Once you have those, you need to make a good thesis statement, next would be research, which she did not do, besides asking me the details about my crash. I think her speech could have been better if she had maybe researched either car crash numbers or Traumatic Brain Injuries. You need to figure out what your audience already knows about your subject so you can make sure you are precise enough about your subject in certain areas.  Be sure to Stick to facts, you are not trying to convince them to see things as you see them but you are informing them about a certain topic.

          I found a video of a student giving an informative speech on you tube(BelmontSpeechLab,2008). Her speech was on night terrors. Which I knew there was such a thing, but did not know the difference between night terrors and night mares. But after watching this video, now I kind of know. This speech followed how the other sites said to give a good informative speech correctly.  Her speech held my attention and informed me of the difference between a nightmare and a night terror.

          I would say that Lindsey’s speech was good but could be improved upon, but this is one of her first times giving a speech, I would say that she did alright over all.

 

References

Lyndon, L. , February 14, 2013,The person whom I find inspirational. ,Trenton

Samoylov, Oleg(2008, 3/18). How to Write an Informative Speech. Ezine @rticles

Retrieved 3/25, 2013, from http://ezinearticles.com/?How-to-Write-an-Informative-Speech&id=1056534

Nair, Tulika(5/12/2011) How to write an informative speech. Buzzel

Retrieved 3/20/2013 from http://www.buzzle.com/articles/how-to-write-an-informative-speech.html

BelmontSpeechLab (2008) Informative Speech:“Night Terrors”[video file].

Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxgNDKJUxF4