初三3班 倪侃 (徐梅英语演讲获得者)

Honorable judges, distinguished parents, ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon. It is my great honor to be the first contestant to start this speech contest.

Friends, I’d like to ask you a question. What is future? According to the Oxford Dictionary, the word future literally means the time or events that will come after the present. So, that is to say future refers to a certain condition or a situation. Of course, everyone hopes that this situation will be as perfect as possible. But most likely, they avoid making efforts with the excuse that they have no chance. They believe that What makes such giants like Newton so successful is the great apple. Do you agree? I totally disagree with this standpoint. In order to embrace a brilliant future, efforts and preparation that you make today are more required than an illusory opportunity that will appear tomorrow. Well, I’d like to share a story with you. It’s a story about this apple and Newton.

Once, there was a man going to see God after his death. God wondered why he hadn’t accomplish anything special throughout his life. Then he replied “Because you didn’t give me the chance. If the apple had fallen onto my head, I would have made such wondrous discoveries as Newton did!” Hearing the words, God sent the man to his young age. Then he made an apple fall onto the man’s head. The man shouted with a curse, and he ate it at once. Suddenly a larger apple dropped down, but the man did the same thing again. Seeing what the man had done, God gave him another apple, but the man was furious, and he threw it away, and this apple flew away and hit against Newton’s head. Then, Newton discovered the Law of Gravitation.

Such story remains thinking. The man in the story believes that it is the great chance that makes Newton so successful. However, when the same thing happens on himself, he doesn’t make any accomplishment. Thus, I believe that what we indeed need is not the chance itself, but the efforts and faith we have to grab the opportunity.. There is actually not a special apple for Newton, yet there’s an apple for every one.. Hence, the fundamental distinction is whether we have the capacity, and firm intention to hold on to the present, for the future is not a kind of fortune. The future is what you are doing now.

There’s an impressive experience of my own as well. Yes, that is definitely this Xu Mei English speaking contest. Without the great efforts I have made until now, I would not have this glory to stand here today. I believe that the similar things happen in everyone’s life, so we are equal when given chances. Because future is not fortune. Future is what you do now!

So those who are still dreaming day and night, pleas take action! Do not be so readily to draw a future, but do your job to construct your future.

There is indeed an apple for all of us, so find it and make good use of it!

初三3班 孙书钰(徐梅英语演讲获得者)

Good afternoon，ladies and gentlemen! It’s my great honor to stand on the stage and give you my speech. My topic will be” The Future Depends on Now”.

First, let’s pay attention to the 2 pieces of paper in my hands. They are identical, but what can they be in the future? Let me show you. If I crumple it into a ball, it becomes a useless garbage. However, if I fold it well and carefully, it can become a beautiful paper airplane. As you can see, they are totally different now. I want to use this example to show you that how much value you can get in the future depends on what you are doing now.

As an HFLSer, I am sure everyone present remembers the motto of our school. “Study for the motherland. Get prepared for the future.” This is the principle that leads us to fully use every minute in this splendid school. That’s why we can see a lot of students busy working around us. Juniors are studying hard for the entrance exam for an ideal high school. Seniors are striving for a better college or university while many others are making great effort on learning English or other subjects for further education abroad. See, everyone understands that the future is now . That’s what HFLS reminds us every single day with its motto and the good examples of teachers and senior students.

Just as the American educationist Roger Babson advised. “Let him who would enjoy a good future waste none of his present.” Our future is like a kite, and the time is the string. We are now holding the string tightly to lead our own kite, but once we are distracted , we loosen our hands a little and a little. The kite flies away till it’s never going to be reached. Never let your hands loosen ,grab every minute and keep your kite in hand. The future is there waiting for us to approach and realize.

Not only is the future close by, but we are in the control of it. The future is a story and we are the writers. It’s like sailing and we are the captain. It’s like a net and we are the weavers. With every effort we make , we are helping ot build up a stronger and more independent China!

Today is a gift and it’s the only access to the future. Keep your kite and let your dream fly!

Thank you.

初三5班 王旭晨

Ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon!

Thank you for giving me this chance to tell my understanding of Future Is Now.

We cannot change yesterday --- that is quite clear.

Or begin on Tomorrow until it is here:

So all that remains, both for you and for me.

Is to make every today as sweet as it can be

As Browning’s poem suggests, whatever will be, the future is not ours to see. But wait, let me remind you of something. It does not mean that we can do nothing but wait because future is unpredictable. What we need to do/ is to cherish what we have now, whether happiness or hardship. Future will only make sense, when we live out the true meaning of today.

A wise man makes the future through efforts while fools just wait for the future to come.

Let’s take two Chinese historic figures for example. One was Wang Xizhi, called the Sage of Calligraphy. He was not born to be a master in Chinese Calligraphy. But as a result of practicing day and night, he finally became a household name of artist. The other is named Zhong Yong, who could write excellent poems when he was just a five-year-old, a rare genius indeed. However, he turned out to be an average man later. Why? Because he and his family took his early talent for everything and made no effort to further develop it.

Gump said that life is like a box of chocolate. You'll never know what you’re gonna get. But we will be able to taste the flavor of chocolate if we take the trouble to open the box right now. Why not put aside the puzzle, put aside the doubt or fear about what future will be. Now is the key. Yesterday could bring you regret. Likewise, tomorrow could also be a difference in return of your effort today. So stop doubting or daydreaming .Be a doer ! As the saying goes, an idle youth, a needy age. Your future lies in what you are doing now. The future is NOW!

Speaking of needy age, it reminds me of two old men who seemed to have no future. One was a stooped woodcutter in an Aesop’s fable, who was so frustrated and hopeless for life that he prayed to Death to take him away. But when Death did come, he withdrew the request, by asking Death to put the bundle of sticks back on his shoulders again. With great pains to take, he preferred to stay as he was now than go to an unburdened future. For him, an unknown future was less good than now. For him now was the future he wanted. The other old man who did not have a future either, is Professor Morrie in Mitch Albom’s Tuesdays With Morrie, who was diagnosed as an ALS patient and would witness his own process of going to death. Instead of waiting for death to come, fearing and cursing, he chose to lecture his former student about life from a dying man’s eyes and left the world a bundle of treasure in spirit. He used his last days to make millions of people rethink the meaning of life. And above all, in an optimistic and detached way. He was a man without future but made his living days full of profound meanings. For him, “the future is now.”

Thus, my fellow friends, seize the present! Great life and splendid future always lay the cornerstone for the day after yesterday and the day before tomorrow. Future is many days laid upon today, that is, now! No more hesitation! As Samuel Taylor Coleridge said, “In today already walks tomorrow”. Let’s make our efforts towards an unexceptionable future from now on! Future is now!

That’s all. Thank you for your listening. I wish each of you a contented now and a beautiful future!

初三4班 丁弘毅

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. It’s a precious opportunity for me to stand here and give you my speech. And today my topic is: future is not in the future.

When I was in the primary school, I had a dream. I wanted to be a basketball player in the future who could beat any other team with the help of my capable teammates. When I was in the junior school, I suddenly realized sadly that my dream wouldn’t come true, because I always thought my future was so faraway that I needn’t do anything at present to realize my dream and make my future bright.

How pathetic! When we grow up, we dream of our future more but at the same time, we do less. Why? Why are we always sad in the end because of the lost of ideal future? Why do we have to surrender to the so-called 'future'? When IS our future actually?

Well, ladies and gentlemen, future is not in the future. Our future is just a result brought by what we do at present. Google, for example, has been the world’s biggest search engine. But we wouldn’t enjoy the convenience that Google brings us if its founders also thought that their future was in the future. 13 years ago, a dream like creating Google was such an impossible thing that most of us could not begin to imagine. But no matter how faraway their dream was, they fought long and hard – Brock by brock, brick by brick, every moment by moment.

Another case in point is Michael Jordan who thought his every step could make him a bright future.

Our future is in our hands at every single moment. We just need to put our hands on the arc of dreams and chances, and bend it once more toward the hope of our future right away.

One day, the globe will share the dreams with us and we will all contribute to making our dreams come true. One day, our current trying will defeat the fantasy. One day, we will be proud of what we did 10 or 20 years ago to make our future bright.

That’s all. Thanks for listening. Thank you all!

初三8班 冯心怡

Good afternoon, my fellow students, teachers, judges and parents. It’s my great honor to stand here and give my short speech. Today my topic is The Future is Ours to Decide.

Well, before giving my formal speech, I’d like to share something interesting with you. Last week when I first knew the topic of the speech contest, I searched for some information online. I just typed in “Future is Now” into Baidu, and read about 10 of the articles. And I found that, the beginning part of the articles are really similar. I’d like to divide them into two types. The first type is like this: what is my future? Every time I look at the deep, blue sky, see the sunrise and the sunset and then the stars shining around the moon, I ask myself. But I’m confused, because there’s no answers. And here comes the second: when I was still a little child, I asked my mother, “Mom, what will my future be like?” and she always answered, “The future is now.” but at that time, this philosophical answer totally confused me.

Well, after reading those articles, I was confused, too. I wonder why thinking about the future is so perceptual. Besides mother and sky, what else comes into a person’s mind when he thinks about his future?

For me, it is every Sunday afternoon, my father takes me back to school and when I get off the car and then see the symbolic half-circle building of our school, exactly at that moment, I think about my future. The thoughts filling my mind are not emotional at all. They’re mainly about making decisions seriously.

Let me explain. The reason why our school reminds me of future and decisions is that, the greatest and most important decision I’ve made in my past 16 years, is to enter Hangzhou Foreign Languages School. I did hesitate a little when I first knew about the surprising chance. But fortunately, this decision is obviously right so far as I see, and I really appreciate that little me for giving me such a good opportunity to stand here to speak, to meet you all, and to have a bright future. This experience has taught me that, decisions we make now, decide our future. That’s what comes into my mind when I identify myself as an HFLSer.

Also, every time I look at the central building, I ponder another important decision I’ve just recently made. I have signed the agreement of entering Cambridge High School Center. Before that, I told myself, “It’s not a game. I cannot simply click RETRY. And I must make the proper choice that will not cause regret.” But after move back to see what the 12-year-old me had done, I am now confident. It’s simple that I should do so as I want to study abroad. Here comes the conclusion that one has to take action right now if he wants to harvest in the future. What’s more, the future is not only a colorful dream in heart, but also a serious decision in mind.

Now, I’d like to share a song with you to end my speech. In the song <Que Sera, Sera>, it says, whatever will be, will be, the future is not ours to see. However, in my opinion, the future is ours to make, to choose, to build, and to draw. So it is now the time for our own to wisely decide the future.

That’s it. Thank you all!

初三9班 曹子悦

Good afternoon my fellow students, dear teachers.

(As a palm reader)Come here, be close to me. Let me look at your palms. I’m a wonderful palm reader and I can predict your future.

(As a speaker)No, no, no, don’t trust her. Your future is in your own hands. It depends on what you are doing now. In a word, you can handle your future. Think about planting trees. If you sow apple seeds into the field today, you’ll get apple trees ten years later. If you sow orange seeds, you’ll get orange trees. You see, what you reap in the future is obviously related to what you sow today. How to handle the future? The answer is handle now. You may ask how, here are my suggestions.

Firstly, dream your future. Dream means hope. My dream job is a translator. Some of you here may want to be artists. Some may scientists. Others may writers, lawyers, teachers; the list goes on and on. Dream is the best motivation for a person.

Secondly, take action. Just imagine, everyone including me is standing on a huge and invisible cloth. Our feet are paintbrushes. We are now going to paint a picture called future. We need to move so that this picture could be more and more colorful. We all dream of a successful future but no dream will come true without actions. Don’t be the giant of thoughts, but the dwarf of actions. Those who wish to be artists, scientists, writers, it’s time to move. Every picture hung on the wall, every experiment carried out in the laboratory, can all build up your dream future. We need to move, we need actions!

Thirdly, stick to the actions. Take, Thomas Edison for example. He wished to have a bright future so he worked day and night in his small and dark laboratory testing more than 1,600 kinds of materials for thermal resistance. Thanks to his not easily achieved success, we now have light bulbs. Edison teaches us the importance of sticking to the actions. If only he gave up his experiment, our bright life would come much later.

It is said tomorrow is mystery, today is a gift. All we need to do is to treasure this gift and then we’ll find the key to tomorrow’s mystery. All in all, handle now, handle the future.

That’s all. Thank you!

初三5班 包捷成

Ladies and gentlemen，good afternoon！

Thank you very much for giving me this chance to share my understanding of Future is now.

Tagore, the famous Indian poet once said, “Life is given to us, and we earn it by giving it.” Likewise, nature is given to us, and we earn it by repaying it. However, it seems that nowadays, man is demanding more than enough from Mother Nature, instead of taking care of it.

The incredible development of science and technology helps us to exploit nature in an excessive way. We are becoming better off at the expense of nature, which will lead to our final destruction. This is precisely described in Havelock Ellis’s remark, “The sun, the moon and the stars would have disappeared long ago... had they happened to be within the reach of predatory human hands.” What a shame!

The future is not ours to see, but it is simply the result of the choices we are making NOW. Therefore, the future of our planet is right in our hands today. What our planet will be like in the future depends on what we are doing today; Whether we human beings can still enjoy a future depends on whether we are taking care of mother nature now.

Human history never lacks lessons given by nature.

The polluted air not only gives rise to a wide range of respiratory system disorders but also causes destructive acid rain.

The extinction of a large number of species continues to disturb zoologists.

The 'Ozone hole' in the Earth's atmosphere, though first made clear in 1970, still ranks on top of the list of environmental problems of 2011.

The ice from Polar Regions has substantially melted due to rise of temperature.

The catastrophe in Japan continues to put humans under the fear of nuclear radiation.

The list goes on and on.

My dear friends, mankind is now in great danger. The future of humans is in the decisions and actions we take today! Future is now!

There is a grand mission to perform and a long way to go. Yet small and individual efforts can be made every day to ensure the sustainable development of our planet Earth. Just as Napoleon Hill said, “If you cannot do great things, do small things in a great way.” 

We can help to maintain a sustainable future by using green and recyclable material, being a thrifty shopper, cherishing a single drop of water, choosing green transportation means. The list goes on and on.

To love nature is to help all of mankind.

The future is ours to build! The future is now, in our choices. 

Now it’s time for us to slow down our pace to give Mother Nature a break.

Now, it’s time for us to stop slaughtering the wildlife to make a future full of wild sounds;

Now, it’s time for us to protect this planet and make a future that is clean and green;

Now it’s time for us to take actions and make a future of real harmony between human and nature!

Let’s recall that well-known poem The Night Has A Thousand Eyes and end it this way:

The night has a thousand eyes,

And the day but one;

Yet the light of the bright world dies,

With the dying sun.

The universe has a thousand planets

And the humans but one

Yet the light of life on the earth disappears,

With the endless predation.

Take action ! The future is now, in our choices!

That’s all. Thank you for your listening. And wish our mother Earth a beautiful future!

初三10班 王海纳

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen!

It’s my great honor to give you a speech on the topic of future and now.

Have you heard that the end of the world is moved to last Saturday by an American?  So first let me say congratulations to you all, since we have survived the so-called doomsday! Give yourselves a big round of applause!

So the next doomsday is going to fall in 2012 again.

Speaking of 2012, I can’t help sharing you the story of a brilliant boy in my class. He is always asking our science teachers tough questions. And whenever the teachers say, ‘Oh, you will learn this in senior high. You needn’t understand it now.’ He replies, ‘Well, what if I die in 2012 so that I won’t be able to learn it forever?’

I laugh every time he says so. However, recently, instead of making me laugh, he just buries his nose in tons of senior high books and attempts to work out those questions himself. He says, ‘In order to learn as much as I can before the doomsday, I must take actions now.’

I was shocked after hearing this. Why on earth are we so keen on predicting the future? You’ll say, because we feel our future mysterious. With so many predictions, however, our future is still mysterious, isn’t it? The more we talk about 2012, the more we are upset. The more we read our horoscope, the more we are uncertain about what we will be. Or, as many complain, the more we wish good luck, the more we get bad luck. They say we are the future of our nation, but we are just too afraid to look into the future. My dear friends, are you trapped in such a situation? Then remember what the boy said, ‘take actions now’.

500 years ago, Shakespeare observed that action is a remedy for fear. That’s why I find the boy becomes happier these days, since he can escape the horrible ideas about the doomsday while exploring the world of science. That’s why we contestants can stand here so confidently, since we have taken actions in order to give you our best speeches.

But, ladies and gentlemen, knowing how to deal with our own worries is not enough. There are millions of other lives on our planet worrying about their tomorrow. Their problems are much more serious than preparing for a speech contest, and they don’t have even a minute to read their zodiac signs. Now it’s the time for us to take actions, to give them a helping hand.

From now on, when you see a car accident, stop and dial 110 and 120 instead of standing by watching to meet your curiosity.

From now on, turn off the water tap after washing hands, because billions are still suffering from thirstiness.

From now on, smile at a farmer’s child, smile at a disabler, smile at a migrant worker. They are all the people worthy of respect. And your smile will make their future warm.

I say, paradise is where everybody feels their future bright. So it must be where everybody knows the power of ‘now’.

This is the future I imagine. This is the dream I hope all of us here can take actions now to achieve.

Thank you very much.