Audio: Sheila Pham at Hope 2010

from Pool team, 25.01.10

Here is a recording of Sheila Pham's talk recorded at the Hope 2010 event.

She wrote a guest blog post about it on ABC Pool:

For the past year I had been looking for an excuse to contribute to Pool but didn’t have anything appropriate to say. When I read about the call out for contributions to the Hope 2010 project, I somehow knew straight away what I wanted to write about. Without being too self-important, I thought perhaps there were people out there who would be interested in my story.

The funny thing is, up until then, I had been so focused on getting through 2009 - a year full of unhappiness and emotional upheaval - I hadn’t even been able to formulate my plans for 2010. But somehow it all came together without much effort at all - my piece wrote itself amidst the usual chaos of December. And when I submitted my story to Pool, I was also effectively committing to what I wrote about. 2010 was going to be the year I finally tackled my Vietnam question, among other things.

It’s amazing what followed from my submission.

Via Pool, Janne Ryan from the ABC asked me if I was interested in speaking at the Sydney Festival keynote address and I immediately said yes. I also started freaking out! Not only was I committing to what I wrote about on Pool, I was also going to do something completely out of my comfort zone by actually participating in the event.

I have been trying to improve my public speaking skills for years and years, and even did 6 months of acting classes recently. So getting up on stage at the City Recital Hall in front of hundreds of people was going to be the ultimate test, to see how far I had come.

I couldn’t believe how calm I was by the time I got up to speak on that stage - I guess I had spent so much time going over my speech that I couldn’t worry any more. It’s still amazing to me that it all started from the piece I submitted to Pool.

It was such a huge honour and thrill to speak in such illustrious company in front of a very warm and receptive audience. That night at the City Recital Hall will always be one of the highlights of my life, no matter what I go on to do. I guess in those moments I felt like I had somehow ‘arrived’ - and I knew that 2010 really was going to be the start of the next chapter of my life.

Image care of the author, showing her and Eva Cox.

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Tags

• Music & Audio
• Writing
• Opinions
• Politics & Social Issues
• hope 2010

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