Reaction to the book Say It Like Obama
(Homework of my first semester in college)
First of all, I should admit the fact that this powerful and enlightening book is not only written in an easy and fluent style but also an instructive one. In my past experience, the various descriptive words, which I would just give them a glance if they were in Chinese, are the barriers in my English reading due to the vocabulary limitation. Always skipping makes the meaning shattered and the minds distracted. Say it like Obama is rather an appropriate material for me, a green hand, to get in touch with authentic English literature. So I should thank you for my teachers for recommending the book and encouraging us to read more. Although it was not a long period and not a tough experience, I indeed changed my thought and attitude to it several times in both the power of speech skills and a preliminary understanding of the American society at a shorter range.
When I read the first five chapters, I was deeply inspired by the beauty of his words, skillfulness of his speech delivering and charisma of a leader. However, I felt bored soon. Just reading a whole page of neat paragraphs with the similar themes, countless examples of his own experience with the alike motivation, and always speaking up change and hope, seems like lack of originality and senseless.
I perceived it was the time to see some videos and absolutely the visual experience is worth thousands of gradually pale words. Then I downloaded The President in a national address to America's school children in Wakefield High School which is not collected in the book but actually stir the students all over the world.
I can only use "splendid" to describe the speech, not just the surfaces or slogans in my image but acquaintance of contemporary students' thoughts and analysis of the truth. In addition, a large amount of information concentrated in the 15 minutes' short speech, just like our book summaries, which enforced me to listen twice even more. His marvellous grace and confidence during the whole speech, with each hand touching the lectern and passionate rational intonation, convinced me of the power of a speech and maybe every American President is a great orator.
Given the artifices in speech, I can treat this discussion, in his words, in a logical way. At the beginning, Obama bridged the distance between himself and the audience, "I imagine there are some seniors out there who are feeling pretty good right now with just one more year to go." of course won applauses and laugh. Then a sentence of "I know that feel." led to the narration of his own experience which only when I hear and watch not read can know how affective and touching it can be, how useful it is in a speech. But the speech went in to a serious level, in which he clearly denied the impulsive and indiscreet attitude to life which maybe the critical problem among American students. "I know that sometimes you get that sense from TV that you can be rich and successful without any hard work that your ticket to success is through rapping or basketball or being a reality TV star,Chances are you're not going to be any of those things. The truth is, being successful is hard." How strict and disregard!
Apparently, the President did not think that is enough, a series of questions I believed shook many hearts. "You want to be a doctor, or a teacher, or a police officer? You want to be a nurse or an architect, a lawyer or a member of our military? You can not drop out of school and just drop into a good job. You've got to train for it and work for it and learn for it." Yes, that is the truth of society, the truth of success. Some of the most successful people in the world are the ones who've had the most failures. The two typical and adoring examples were self-evident: "J.K.Rowling's, who wrote Harry Potter, her first Happy Potter book was rejected 12 times before it was finally published. Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team. He lost hundreds of games and missed thousands of shots during his career, But he once said, I have failed over and over and over again in my life, and that's why I succeed. These people succeeded becaused they understood that you can't let your failures define you, you have to let your failures teach you. You have to let them show you what to do differently next time."
In the end, the President passed on the responsibility to the next generation, maybe not right now, but always getting ready. "So today, I want to ask all of you, what's your contribution going to be? What problems are you going to solve? What discoveries will you make? What will a President who comes here in 20 or 50 or 100 years say about what all of you did for this country?" I bet most students presented or watched TV live telecast started to plan, to dream, to practice. "I expect you to put your beast effort into everthing you do. I expect great things from each of you. So don't let us down. Don't let your family down or your country down. Most of all, don't let yourself down. Make us all proud." Speaking at one stretch, leaving strong last impression, Obama exerts the influence not only on American students but also all students no matter color, no matter racial, no matter nationality.
Besides, the contents in Obama's speech reflected the American current social environment in a most direct and true way. Since 1970s, Chinese people began the trend towards earning or learning in America. But now, the problems of racial discrimination, the settlement of the jobless, the education for the poor, the weak economy and the war, proves that,as far as I see, maybe America is not a so perfect paradise which still attracted a great many of Chinese students. However, the two society always have something in common and difference, for example, the traits of next generation. As the globalization has brought the world increasingly closer, our Chinese students are also quite familiar with these successful people, such as J.K. Rowling and Michael Jordan, even the hope of rich or famous over one night exists as well. And once, the icon show programmes became a social topic as well as some young writers. Obama's speech gave us the key elements behind the bright outside.
"The story of America isn't about people who quit when things got tough. It's about people who kept going, who tried harder, who loved their country too much to do anything less than their best." The story of China, even the world, is also about people who develop himself, who dedicate himself, who love himself beyond peradventure.
First of all, I should admit the fact that this powerful and enlightening book is not only written in an easy and fluent style but also an instructive one. In my past experience, the various descriptive words, which I would just give them a glance if they were in Chinese, are the barriers in my English reading due to the vocabulary limitation. Always skipping makes the meaning shattered and the minds distracted. Say it like Obama is rather an appropriate material for me, a green hand, to get in touch with authentic English literature. So I should thank you for my teachers for recommending the book and encouraging us to read more. Although it was not a long period and not a tough experience, I indeed changed my thought and attitude to it several times in both the power of speech skills and a preliminary understanding of the American society at a shorter range.
When I read the first five chapters, I was deeply inspired by the beauty of his words, skillfulness of his speech delivering and charisma of a leader. However, I felt bored soon. Just reading a whole page of neat paragraphs with the similar themes, countless examples of his own experience with the alike motivation, and always speaking up change and hope, seems like lack of originality and senseless.
I perceived it was the time to see some videos and absolutely the visual experience is worth thousands of gradually pale words. Then I downloaded The President in a national address to America's school children in Wakefield High School which is not collected in the book but actually stir the students all over the world.
I can only use "splendid" to describe the speech, not just the surfaces or slogans in my image but acquaintance of contemporary students' thoughts and analysis of the truth. In addition, a large amount of information concentrated in the 15 minutes' short speech, just like our book summaries, which enforced me to listen twice even more. His marvellous grace and confidence during the whole speech, with each hand touching the lectern and passionate rational intonation, convinced me of the power of a speech and maybe every American President is a great orator.
Given the artifices in speech, I can treat this discussion, in his words, in a logical way. At the beginning, Obama bridged the distance between himself and the audience, "I imagine there are some seniors out there who are feeling pretty good right now with just one more year to go." of course won applauses and laugh. Then a sentence of "I know that feel." led to the narration of his own experience which only when I hear and watch not read can know how affective and touching it can be, how useful it is in a speech. But the speech went in to a serious level, in which he clearly denied the impulsive and indiscreet attitude to life which maybe the critical problem among American students. "I know that sometimes you get that sense from TV that you can be rich and successful without any hard work that your ticket to success is through rapping or basketball or being a reality TV star,Chances are you're not going to be any of those things. The truth is, being successful is hard." How strict and disregard!
Apparently, the President did not think that is enough, a series of questions I believed shook many hearts. "You want to be a doctor, or a teacher, or a police officer? You want to be a nurse or an architect, a lawyer or a member of our military? You can not drop out of school and just drop into a good job. You've got to train for it and work for it and learn for it." Yes, that is the truth of society, the truth of success. Some of the most successful people in the world are the ones who've had the most failures. The two typical and adoring examples were self-evident: "J.K.Rowling's, who wrote Harry Potter, her first Happy Potter book was rejected 12 times before it was finally published. Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team. He lost hundreds of games and missed thousands of shots during his career, But he once said, I have failed over and over and over again in my life, and that's why I succeed. These people succeeded becaused they understood that you can't let your failures define you, you have to let your failures teach you. You have to let them show you what to do differently next time."
In the end, the President passed on the responsibility to the next generation, maybe not right now, but always getting ready. "So today, I want to ask all of you, what's your contribution going to be? What problems are you going to solve? What discoveries will you make? What will a President who comes here in 20 or 50 or 100 years say about what all of you did for this country?" I bet most students presented or watched TV live telecast started to plan, to dream, to practice. "I expect you to put your beast effort into everthing you do. I expect great things from each of you. So don't let us down. Don't let your family down or your country down. Most of all, don't let yourself down. Make us all proud." Speaking at one stretch, leaving strong last impression, Obama exerts the influence not only on American students but also all students no matter color, no matter racial, no matter nationality.
Besides, the contents in Obama's speech reflected the American current social environment in a most direct and true way. Since 1970s, Chinese people began the trend towards earning or learning in America. But now, the problems of racial discrimination, the settlement of the jobless, the education for the poor, the weak economy and the war, proves that,as far as I see, maybe America is not a so perfect paradise which still attracted a great many of Chinese students. However, the two society always have something in common and difference, for example, the traits of next generation. As the globalization has brought the world increasingly closer, our Chinese students are also quite familiar with these successful people, such as J.K. Rowling and Michael Jordan, even the hope of rich or famous over one night exists as well. And once, the icon show programmes became a social topic as well as some young writers. Obama's speech gave us the key elements behind the bright outside.
"The story of America isn't about people who quit when things got tough. It's about people who kept going, who tried harder, who loved their country too much to do anything less than their best." The story of China, even the world, is also about people who develop himself, who dedicate himself, who love himself beyond peradventure.
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