Toastmaster ladies and gentlemen welcome to my world.
Those two were none other than my own two brothers. My elder brother was the boxing captain of his school team and my younger brother was the captain of rifle shooting club of his school. Therefore back at home life was fantabulous with a mother who is singing all the time (Did I say a little out of tune) a father who makes jokes about almost everything and many dogs. At one point we had 7 dogs at home. My family has inspired me in many ways but mostly it was the way we were brought up. Even as kids we were given all the freedom we want to make choices about life. But we always had to take responsibility of what we did. Mostly the only form of punishment was my family’s endless bugging and teasing. I must say it was quite effective.
There’s something really funny about my life. That is where ever I go I tend to end up being the only woman. I was born in a family with two brothers. Studied mechanical engineering with almost no other girls in the department. Even now I’m reading for my masters in University of Tokyo and I’m the only woman in my lab and there are only 2 female students in my department including myself. But it has always been a lot of fun to work with men.
I believe that we go through death in a daily basis and with every breath taking experience we are reborn as a new person with a new set of attitudes. Today I would like to share some of those breath takers with you all. One fine day I walked in to my University’s Gavel Toastmasters club and that changed my life in many different ways. Not only I mastered the art of public speaking there but also I found the most wonderful set of people I ever met in my life who are also my closest friends to date. Since I was doing quite well in presentations I got the opportunity to represent my University and country several times internationally for conferences and competitions. Which simply meant 3 free trips abroad and one of those competitions was CIMA global business challenge. There we could bag the second place in the world finals. That was truly a breath taker.
All my life I have been very lucky because I was always surrounded by amazing fun loving and interesting people. My university life was nothing but a joyous ride with all night movie marathons, parties, trips and amazing spend the days with my best buddies.
Other than these buddies I have built a long term very strong relationship with books. In other words I’m a bookworm and I read almost everything that comes on my way. However I wasn’t quite in to love stories until one of my best friends gifted me the sweetest romantic novel that I have ever read, “Daddy long legs” on my 18th birthday. I still don’t know why but that booked had some magic on it and it was the only book that I have read more than 12 times.
Ever since I read that book I was looking for my daddy longlegs. Finally I met him while I was a fresher in the University and he’s that wonderful man who’s sitting right there. Who is the love of my life, my partner in crime, my best buddy in computer games, and my worst critic. After getting married I moved to Japan with him last year.
To be frank first six months of my stay in Japan was quite a nightmare. I didn’t speak Japanese and I was basically at home doing nothing. As a person, who has always lived a very busy life for me it was unbearable. But somehow I could bounce back with the wonderful support I had from my family.
As per my brother there’s only one golden rule in boxing, the one who bounce back earliest would win the game. So is the way of life, Life would hit you on the face with all the troubles in the world but the trick is to bounce back as quickly as you can.
Toastmaster…
