CHIC interview report

September 3, 2010

By Meco

This time I am an impromptu reporter since no one confirmed that I was to be the reporter again. Thanks to Iris for her input in the after-speech interview through email. Unfortunately didn’t reach Charlie so all of us are going to miss the funny stories behind his “what ifs”. As a speaker for the night in the meantime it’s really convenient to interview myself – another unconventional CHIC move after Charlie evaluated himself!

Questions:

- What are the funny things during your preparation of your speech?

- Tell us how you feel about your evaluations.

Iris:

During the preparation of my first speech, I could feel that interesting ideas coming out all the time. I tried to put as much CHIC elements as I can into the speech. Thanks to the funny things we had experienced together, it's really an easy and delightful job as long as using your imagination fully. What's more, the conversation between the Tanzanian gentleman and I is true, and it has enlightened MORE THAN TEN of my friends (who are as single as me, obviously)! And many thanks to Jonah, who helped me a lot during my preparation (He helped me to translate "小三儿" as "Third Senior", which is really creative, but I finally gave it up for I believed nobody could understand what I meant by "Third Senior", haha!)

I like the "group evaluation" idea! It drives every CHICer to speak out their personal ideas and comments on the prepared speeches, not just write them down (I believe "writing" is not the CHICer way, let's talk!) And I really want to give my thanks to all members of group 1 and 4 who evaluated me last night. Thanks for your sincere encouragement as well as inspiring advice! It really helps me a lot to strengthen self-confidence, as well as to discover my shortcomings for further improvements. And I want to especially thank Luca, who sent me his personal comments & advice to me by email after the meeting. The evaluation is one of the best part of CHIC & TM!

Meco:

The funny thing to me was I hopped from topic to topic trying to find the one I would feel comfortable to speak about. These ranges from men and women relationships, whether to keep pets and how music can do magic. I just couldn’t make up my mind so wrote 3 scripts on each of the topic. Only one day before speaking I eventually decided on the men and women relationships , since somehow felt the other 2 topics were childish, or rather what I wrote was. Not an easy journey, but glad I did it.

In addition to the laughter I received during speech (which I think is the best reward for a CHIC speaker), I really appreciate the evaluators comments. They point out my strong and weak points which will help me grow. The group evaluation worked well as a first time innovation and I want to thank the representative evaluators. Snow I totally agree with your team and will try to make more inspiring speeches. Thanks Jeff for confirming me what I did well, your comment is very encouraging and motivating. Luca, really appreciate your comment, which did away my wonder “Is the audience interested in what I said” and your advice always drives the nail on the head. Thanks to all of you, and all of you who laughed and applauded, this is the best music to me.

Notes from the reporter: Next time we will try to talk more to other role takers, guests and audience. We encourage you to come to us too, tell us whatever you think of the meeting, speeches, performances, jokes, evaluations etc etc. Especially when you didn’t speak in the meeting, here is the last chance for you to share your thoughts about the meeting and potentially get published on our website! Come on CHICers, let’s make it together.