Blog: Sharing hope
Sheila Pham was one of the contributors chosen to speak at the Sydney Festival Hope 2010 event in the City Recital Hall and on ABC Radio National.
We asked her what it was like contributing to the project and then sharing with the crowd what her hopes really were. Here is her story.
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.
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Image care of the author, showing her and Eva Cox.
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2 comments
28.01.10 — saucybeige
Stella, what a wonderful story. Thank you for sharing it.
You seemed like the perfect candidate to get chosen to speak - dare I say, like you were destined to!!
...the fact that the Hope 2010 project was the single Pool project that called you to action, that you had been building on your public speaking skills for a long time and had recently done acting classes, and that despite being in, as you say, a year of upheaval, your hopes for 2010 "wrote themselves."
Wishing you all the best in realising your hopes this year.
You're off to an auspicious start :)
28.01.10 — GB
Well done Sheila. I found that inspirational. Maybe it's time I took some risks and as they say 'feel the fear and do it anyway'.