Pambayun Savira (INA YES to USA YP 16–17)

This is the ovation, showcase day for my speech! I am so exciting but also nervous about it. All season just like flying by from the end of January till today, Friday, March 31. People say time fly so fast and I approve. I love speech even though I am so scared about it at first. My English is not as good, I would say. I know a lot of vocab and it is more than sufficient to write an essay or more, read a good book, and communicate with native American. I just realize here that I have accent, or I thought I knew how to pronounce some words but people didn’t get what I was saying which means I didn’t know how to pronounce those words correctly. It makes me ashamed somehow when people frown because they try hard to make out of what I say but as I look back to it, my teeth are shown as I grin. Looking back to the beginning of the season, our team had a mock tournament. That was my first time performing my speech even though I had not had memorized it yet and I knew my coach was worry about whether my audiences could understand what was my speech about. It turned out, the judge in my room could understand what I said and I was the only one who didn’t speed up while delivering the speech. I understand why people sped up. I actually sped up but couldn’t be as fast since I was stumbling with the words here and there. I experienced that feeling, nervous. As I stand in front of people who had their eyes on me, hoping they would understand what I am saying, with a little tremble all over my body, and warm feeling on my back as my heart was beating so fast. My host family wanted to come. Gabi was with us as Dad drove me up to the school and mom was on the way from work. I couldn’t help it but kept saying I didn’t want them to come because I didn’t want to disappoint them. I knew that Mac and Gabi always wanted their parents to come to their sports events but I said those were different case since they’ve been in sport since they were even not in kindergarten while it was my very first time doing speech in front of native speaker with their language. I actually was like whatever if they wanted to see me and support me but Dad said if you really didn’t want us to come and watch then it was totally fine with them. But still, I felt guilty.

One Saturday Tournament was all done and I was going to face my knee surgery. My host family took care of me really well as if I was really a part of their family. I felt bad for my mom who cried for me, feeling bad about why did she take me skiing and thinking about my parents on the other side of the world couldn’t be by my side while I had torn ACL, no matter how many times I told her that it wasn’t her fault at all. It was my decision to come along skiing and tried the actual hill eventually. Of course it was such a heart breaking moment as I did video call with my parents back home, Ayah and Ibu, also the other family. Ibu had sounded casually on the phone but not Ayah. He was worry so much. As we were doing video call, Ibu cried but luckly Ayah seemed calm. Mom helped reassured them by sending the hospital and the surgeon information, the best ACL reconstruction in Minnesota. The day com and mom took me to the hospital for surgery. The surgery went well but it was painful once the drugs went off. It was agonizing as I moved my leg, or had to move around with crutches, or had to keep my immobilizer on and shouldn’t take a shower for days. Thanks to Gabi who taught me how to use crutches so I moved a lot better with crutches. So I didn’t go to school for six days including weekend. Mom was working from home that first few days as my nurse. So lovely, wasn’t it? Dad helped me with the exercises since he’s a physical therapist, and Mac walked home with me from the bus stop that day when we had after school make-up assignment since he was ill too. Mac, Gabi, and I didn’t go to school for days at the same time. Honestly, it was such a hard time for Mom and Dad. Oh, my program representative with her daughter and her exchange student visited us. They gave each of Mom, Dad, Mac, Gabi, and I a card with the wishes. That was really nice of them.

That hard time passed by and now I came back to speech. Still with both crutches by my sides and immobilizer on. I didn’t ask them but my team mates helped me bring my board since my kind of speech required us to have visual aid and I thanked them a lot. I did my speech and it was such a mess because I dropped my boards since I couldn’t move as well. I was on the verge of tears because of embarrassment. But, my judge gave me a smile and even another competitor whispered “you got this” to me. That was encouraging. This is what I really like about speech, making friends. Also, you don’t have to start as a really good speaker and your competitors are your friends too.

Now, ovation time! There are more than 100 people in the auditorium that night. My team mates and I are nervous but also pumped up. It is such a special night for me and other seniors since this is our last year doing speech even though it also was my first time. We have flower on our suit also our pictures and our quotes on the screen as the spectators are lining up to get into the auditorium. We have videos and of course our speeches ready. I had my rubik’s cube as my visual aid to be solved during my speech. And now, I am wishing that my host family comes. Some of my friends finished their speech and now is the intermission. I still can’t find my host family. As my team mates and I are about to head back in, I see Mom and Gabi. I am relieved but also disappointed because I can’t find Dad and Mac. We head back in and after several minutes, here I go to do my speech. With those little jokes how I touched the cube in kindergarten for the first time, how to solve the cube, and founding that the cube can be solved with 20 steps or less despite its complexity, the audiences laughed. My friends deliver my speech and as the last speech is finished, we’re done! We compliment each other for our awesome speech before section. Our confidence is lifted up for sure. So then I head out to see my host family, and guess what, I see Dad and Mac. I turned out all of them have been there the whole time but the watched from the second floor until intermission that Mom and Gabi went down. I am so glad! We ended up going to buy desserts after that. Such a night with its own up and down!