Speech: A Part of Who I Am Today by Samantha

Speech: A Part of Who I Am Today by Samantha - December 2016 Scholarship Essay

You matter who you are or where you are from, everyone has a school accomplishment of some kind that they are proud of. It differs depending on who you ask and where you ask, but it equally has the same amount of delight when someone thinks of what they have done to make themselves and others proud of them. The biggest academic achievement that I am extremely proud of is qualifying for an Informative speech about soap at the 2015 Nebraska State Speech Competition. There is many sacrifices and obstacles that I had to overcome along my journey to achieve my goal of making to state.
To begin, an informative is a type of speech that you must write with research that you must find and sort through. I spent so many hours in front a laptop screen researching the history of soap, facts about soap, and how to make soap yourself. I combed through countless articles and had to decide if they were a reliable source or not. To the surprise of my English teacher, I was the first student to finish their speech and was ready to start memorizing. This speech had to fill eight minutes of time, and therefore is a significantly long speech for a fourteen year old, at the time, to write.
Memorizing a speech on the other hand is an entirely different story. I would sit in my room and read my odd speech about the history of soap over and over again. I would tape up a card with my speech on my shower wall to practice in the shower. I performed many informal readings in front of many of my family members including my dad, brother, and grandmother. I was determined to know this speech like the back of my hand. In a way, this speech became a part of me. I would meet with my English teacher early in the mornings to practice my inflections in my voice and pauses in my sentences.
Nothing would compare, however, to the first time I gave my speech at the Broken Bow competition. I was nervous but excited, and tried my very best. I was awarded first place at the end of the day and had never been so proud of myself. It was the beginning to a great run. Even though I hated waking up early, especially on Saturdays, I loved getting up and going to tell my speech in front of a judge and fellow informative speech students. I quickly met many friends just like myself from different towns, even though I'm usually not very outgoing. Compared to many other activities where I was below average at, I excelled at speech and absolutely loved every minute of it. It brought out the best in me.
By the time March rolled around, all my hard work paid off. At districts in Kenesaw, I was awarded third and was therefore going to state speech at UNK. I couldn't believe it and I have never seen my dad so proud of me. I received lots of congratulations, but I knew that I had to prepare for state. I continued running over my speech in the mirror and met with my teacher even more until I was completely ready. There was lots of incredible speeches made by incredible students and I was nervous. My English teacher, also one of my biggest role models, told me that there may be great students here, but I was here too and that must mean that I am great. I gave my very best that day in both my rounds, but unfortunately did not move on to finals. However, I am still incredibly proud of myself making it there as a freshman competing with students as old as seniors. I still see it as one of my greatest accomplishments and promise to make it back next year and do even better.
It doesn't matter who you are or what it is, but it is very important to be proud of something not only in high school, but in life. To me, that accomplishment is writing an outstanding speech that qualified me to go perform at the state competition. To achieve this, I had to at overcome many obstacles and make many sacrifices to achieve what I did. I am not only incredibly proud of making into a statewide competition, but who speech made me as a person.