李珊珊：澳门大学选手，第二十届中国日报社“21世纪•可口可乐杯”全国英语演讲比赛冠军。


演讲稿：

               The balance of Yin and Yang—a youth perspective
Ladies and gentlemen, youth is precious. It is a time of our lives where we are energetic, idealistic and passionate but also clueless, insecure and naive. This small fragment of time in our lives may sometimes feel like a grey area between childhood and adulthood. A time where most of us feel lost but yet excited about what’s to come. It is a mixture of bliss, toxicity and adrenaline. Youth is bright and sunny but it is also dark and stormy. Let me explain.
Youth is happiness. Youth is trying things for the first time. It is being a bit braver, a bit bolder, a bit... mercurial! Perhaps, for some, it is the first time we fall in love and it’s magical - like a story in a fairytale. Youth now, is spending time on the Internet, with our friends, on our hobbies, on the things we enjoy - but, all this time is not time wasted because we are happy. Youth is a Pandora’s Box of memories with childhood friends and high school classmates - making fun of our teachers behind their backs and sometimes copying each other’s homework.
But youth is also pain. It is a time of metamorphosis and sometimes we learn things that are simply excruciating. For those who fall in love, youth is your first heartbreak and it feels like the end of the world. Youth is a time for goodbyes - the friends we used to see every day are now scattered across the globe and everyday becomes once a year. Youth is a time for acceptance - where we get rejected by universities, by our parents and even by ourselves. We beat ourselves up over things we can’t change yet don’t understand - why did that university not accept me? Why am I not good enough? Why?
Youth is both happiness and pain. It has moments of highs and lows, light and dark. It is the zenith and the nadir. You can’t have one without the other. Rather, it’s a balance of both - a yin and a yang, a complete whole.
So ladies gentlemen, do not fear the darkest of nights because it will always be followed by day - the boy or girl who broke your heart will never meet the spouse of your future, the friends you thought you’d never see again come back to you - perhaps on your wedding day and to those who didn’t think that we were good enough, well, look how far we’ve come.
Thank you.