徐艺宁：浙江工业大学选手，第16届21世纪杯全国英语演讲比赛一等奖获得者。
个人简介：热爱尝试一切新生且有意义的事物，热爱追求目标的过程，热爱读书以体味生活，热爱英语以丰富人生。实习及所获奖项：国家级奖学金获得者、校一等奖学金获得者、校“外研社”杯英语辩论大赛一等奖最佳辩手、校中美网络辩论赛团体/个人一等奖、浙江省高等数学竞赛三等奖、曾担任世界循环产业博览会英语联络官、曾担任英语家教、校内校级英语社团社长。
演讲稿：
I still remember when I was in the senior high, one of my best friends was struggling to make a decision between going abroad for further study and staying in China, finally she chose the later, and the reason she provided was very simple:” studying abroad is a tough experience!” Most of us will probably agree with her because we’re always deliberately trying to avoid difficulties and toughness society assigns us. Therefore, lots of the criticisms nowadays are based on the fact that young people are lack of faith which is shaped by the toughness they should have encountered in their age. As a generation brought up in the greenhouse; our parents sheltered nearly every waves and storms outside our ivory tower. A little tree with constant watering and care can never stand a violent wind, however, a tree on a dry land can live more vigorously even after a disaster because bad conditions develop its quality to grow its root much more deeper into the ground. Toughness shapes faith, and faith can turn obstacles to opportunities.
Dear ladies and gentlemen, how many of you have ever given up your pursuit because you thought it was too tough to accomplish and the obstacles are insurmountable? When reflecting on ourselves, let’s make a comparison with a boy called Liu Wei, who won the championship of 2010 China’s Got Talent by playing piano with his feet. The 22-year old boy, whose arms were amputated because of an electric shock, finally overcame all the obstacles once hindered his way to pursue his dream and showed us a preternatural faith shaped by the toughness he has encountered. And finally, his misery turned out to be an opportunity for him to build his faith and won the recognitions from the public.
Liu’s stirring deeds make us contemplate, if he didn’t lose his arms when he was young, he might be one of those bewildered people, hunting for a job to keep him a living in the social trend, furthermore, if Helen Keller wasn’t deprived of her sight and hearing, she might be deprived of her insight into the essence of life, if President Lincoln’s career was all smooth before he won the election, he might never have that perseverance to bring him onto such a historical stage.
Toughness shapes faith, and faith can turn obstacles into opportunities. That’s the reason why we should always be positive towards those so-called torturing events in life. We saw the faith shaped by Liu’s disability supported him to win applauds by millions of people around the world, providing the opportunities for him to shake off the shackles of his lost arms. Several weeks ago, we saw the faith shaped by the national disaster supported a squad-group of 50 Japanese workers voluntarily stick fast to their post, providing the living opportunities for others. Then, what do we see in us? Building faith is a life-long process, let’s bravely face the storms of life, face the toughness we once wanted to shun, face our original dreams which were later denied by ourselves. Let’s shape our faith by facing the challenges in life, and altering the obstacles into those precious opportunities that we’ll treasure in our whole life!
