苏宁馨：辽宁大学选手，第十四届“21世纪杯”全国英语演讲比赛亚军。

演讲稿：If I had a magic wish

　　Honorable judges, ladies and gentlemen,

　　The fairytale of Aladdin has always been my childhood favorite. I was mesmerized by how Aladdin used his three magic wishes. As a small girl, I dreamed of having the magic wishes to go wherever I wanted to go and see whatever I wanted to see. As you can probably guess, I haven’t found my genie in the lamp yet, however, I have found something just as exciting and it has made marvelous changes in not only my life, but the lives of all human-beings. It is called technology.

　　I still remember how my father told me about his childhood back in those days when China was not as open and developed as it is now.   Children would run for kilometers to school, make toys with wood by themselves, and the biggest dream of a child was holding two jars of sugar, one white, the other brown in each arm and having the choice of eating whichever he wanted.  Just look at what we have now. Magnificent technological advancement has opened up a whole new world to us.

　　However, just as our lives become more convenient, problems arise from this new life style. We seem to be caged in the modern technology; we are thinking alike as a result of using the same search engine, we are getting lazy as most of our work can be done by machines, and we are alienating people around us for we are more comfortable talking on phones and typing in front of a computer.

　　If I was given the chance to make my magic wishes now, I would wish we could go back in time and live for three days without advanced technology.  I wonder what we would do in those three days. Here is what I imagine. 

　　On the first day, people would be feeling so uncomfortable with the new situation that they would probably be confused and just not know what to do. The world would be in a mess for the whole day.

　　On the second day, as life goes on, people would have to find alternative ways to deal with their daily rituals: students would have to go to libraries for information they wanted instead of searching on Google; boys would have to express their affection to girls in person instead of sending an annoying txt message; and the young people of today would have the chance to experience the childhood of their parents. On this particular day, we could recover all we had lost in the modern world.

　　Then comes the third day.  After the previous two days, we would gradually come to realize that we should have paid more attention to our studies and work as we actually have so much creativity and potential within ourselves.  We would also realize that we should have spent more time with a friend, a parent or a child as we do love them, but we don’t really understand them due to the lack of personal communication.  We shouldn’t have been so dependent on modern technology as it wasn’t invented to confine us, but to inspire us. This last day would be spent in sparks of new ideas and sweet moments with our loved ones.

　　Maybe some would argue that it is just my imagination, and that magic would never work in our world. True, but magic can always work in our hearts, helping us understand that we, instead of the machine, are the masters of the world.  The key is to treasure our human initiative and connections, to see the world with our own eyes, explore the unknown with our minds and treat others with our hearts. Just like Aladdin didn’t choose to use magic to gain a happy life, we can make our choice, too. And when we do, we will live, as in the fairy tales, happily ever after. Thank you.