Award Winning Speech

Jacky Wong

Award Speech

5/9/13

            Hello! I would like to thank everyone who has helped me achieve this moment, to be able to become 1^st place in the 2036 singles badminton bracket, here in Tokyo. This is a great achievement in life. I would like to thank my parents for introducing me to badminton when I was a lot younger. I also want to thank my high school teachers who taught me many new things.

            Friends, they are something that everyone should and will have. As my Honors II English teacher, Mr. Rehak, would say, “If you don’t have any friends, get some.” Or something of the sort. Friends encourage you to do many things, sometimes stupid or regretful and sometimes memorable or smart. To become friends with someone is like a mountain you must conquer, like a battle you must endure.

            A friend is someone that you can trust with secrets, someone that you can go to when you are in need of help, and even someone who can protect you. People that you can enjoy your time with can be a great way to spend your time instead of being alone. A dictionary definition of friend would be something that would include mutual affection, but why would you need a dictionary to define a friend? A friend comes in all shapes, sizes, races, sexes, and etc.

            Friends can make your worst day become a paradise, one that no matter which side of paradise you are on, you will always be happy. People die every second and every day so make your time with your friends the greatest it can be or they might just disappear one day and you will never have the same amount of memories that you could have had.

            Friends make the future bright and the friends you make today can make the future for Earth a better one. The ability to shape the future is inside of everyone. Today, I feel like a mere speck of human life who has won nothing more than a medal. A medal that might not even matter in the future where anything can happen. I would love to be one of these humans that will shape the future for the next generation and onward.

           Believe in me, sometimes, the weakest of us can be the strongest. The future is always beyond the grasp of our pitiful, human hands. We always reach for the future but always being forced down by others and the present time. As long as we have villains, we have heroes, heroes that WILL shape our future. The future will never be in our hands for the present stops us and our past might just come back to haunt us. Every day, every month, every year, we grow older, older to see how the society remembers the heroes and the ones who have done great things.  My friends are one generation of these heroes. They are everyday heroes like the policemen and doctors who save lives. But my generation has branched out to every single possible thing to help the next generation grow stronger and help more people.

            As we get old, we should teach the next generation of heroes everything we have learned so that they can keep the human race moving forward and one day we can achieve greater things like space travel and finding all the elements in the universe and beyond. Just remember, friends will push you to do more and maybe one day, you will be able to achieve these things.

            As for now, my friends who will shape the future are some of my most precious things, and together forever no matter how long. From now, until the end of time, we will be together and you can be sure that forever and a day, that is how long we will stay. Together and forever more. Thank you!