Third Place Winner of the 2004 Toastmasters English Speech Contest  Lily Chen Ping Tung

   Ladies and gentlemen,

How do you feel when you look in the mirror each morning？  Do you feel like buying a new mirror？ 

That's how I feel when I look in the mirror --I can't stand my fat …you know what, the butterflies under my arms, or my eyes. You may wonder what's wrong with my eyes. If you look closely, I have a single-eyelid this side and a triple-eyelid on this side.  

perfect.  Take my figure for example. I have always considered myself a little chubby. I'm so envious of skinny fashion models！  To me, they all
seem to have a perfect figure; they wear perfect clothes, have perfect boyfriends, and even go shopping with a perfect dog under their arms.  I can't stand it！  It drives me crazy！

  My friends keep telling me, “Come on, Lily. You are going too far. You are not fat at all”.  Nobody understands me. I don't want ANY extra fat. I want to be a perfect 36-24-36！  After all, I am “Miss Perfect”

However, three years ago I met a cute transfer student. His name was Dick Fu. I still remembered he was a little bit “chubby”. His mother was one of my colleagues so she asked me to take special care of her son. So I did. Dick was a very quiet boy who always listened carefully. Indeed, he was a hard-working student. But, to my shock, on the first monthly exam he only got 63 on his English test. Sixty-three, to Miss Perfect-his English teacher, is terrible.

Let me tell you why. There were a total of 35 students in the class. On this exam, most of them got over 80. But, his grade was right “down” there.

I asked if he understood what I taught in class.  He nodded his head firmly.  “Then why did you ONLY get 63” I asked. He was speechless but he finally said, “Miss Chen, this is the first time in my life I did not fail in English. I used to get only 20 or 30.”  At that moment, I became speechless. I couldn't help but ask myself, “What exactly is good enough？” 

My dear friends, to me the student got a terribly score.  But in the mind of that student, he got the perfect score！

Lily, do you expect this young boy to be a Shakespeare！  Lily, are YOU perfect？  Just look at your BUTTERFLIES！  And how about those extra inches around your waist！  And don't forget that triple eyelid！ Are you perfect？

That day I learned a lot about Lily.  I realized that even a new mirror would not make me PERFECT！ And from that day forward, I had a fresh perfective on PERFECTION.

Several years ago, when people asked the famous artist, Dr.黃美廉, who is a cerebral palsy patient,“ How do you see yourself as a patient of cerebral palsy？”  She struggled with her language disability but smiled and wrote, ”Well, I am cute！ My legs are beautiful ！ God loves me very much, and my parents love me, too！ I can paint and write beautifully！  And… most importantly, I only look at what I have instead of what I don't have.”

My dear friends, what is being perfect？  Being perfect is not just how good we are, it's how well we appreciate ourselves.

So, 36-27-40 is not bad, either. I guess I am almost “perfect”！