This is the second speech I’ve ever written. The first was in english last year. This one is probably even worse since I’ve got worse! But my teacher made me do a public speaking competition because two of my close friends are doing it too. The speech is about memtal health. So here’s what I wrote. Be as critical as you like! Thanks a loooooad!

Note: She decided together the three of us should have an ongoing story theme, one person tells the story of how somebody commits suicide when troubled about a problem, the next tells how his class mate does not deal with it well, and the last (me) tells how another class mate deals with it well and learns to move on and maintain mental health.
Where I said ____ I mean the suicide victim’s name – my friend can choose that in his own speech.

Chairperson, adjudicators, distinguished guests, fellow speakers, ladies and gentleman, suicide: A permanent solution for a temporary problem. Why could he not see this? He never seemed sad. Was there an inner scream? This was his kamikaze in a war for happiness. But when times got tough, why did he not call for reinforcements? He had friends, he was a popular guy. Support was there. Why did he not take it? Thomas wished he could have done something for his dear friend, _____. When he found out, the significance did not occur to him straight away. He was, of course, surprised, but did not cry or faint. Instead he wondered what his last words had been, what his last thoughts were. Ironic, he thought, that death is found by ‘walking towards the light’, when the darkness of death clearly smothers any last remnants of light. The light is easy to find: Stay plodding along, talk to people, call help lines, find help and realize that no matter how bad it gets, it can always be worse. Once it is over, it is over. There’s no going back. ____ learned this the hard way. Thomas remembered something he heard on the radio a few days earlier: ‘Life is like a pizza. When it’s good, it’s really good. When it’s bad, it’s still pretty good.’ It was a pity ____ had not been listening.

A situation like this would be difficult for any class, but exam year students would find it particularly tough to deal with. Not only would it be the first bereavement many in the class would have ever suffered, but also the exam stress would be entwining itself in the students’ minds. When stress and pressure is knitted thickly around students, many will not be able to handle it and will be choked by a wooly scarf of physical illness, lack of concentration, uneven sleeping patterns and nightmares, but to name a few of its dark shades. In this case, Thomas handled them well. Exercise is one of the key ways to handle stressful situations. As with nearly all health issues the link between mind and body is crucial as the Latin phrase ‘mensauna encorpore sano’ explains. It means healthy mind, healthy body. Exercise encourages the release of brain chemicals called endorphins, which encourage a naturally happy feeling. It also works off muscle tension and makes you feel physically better and therefore more comfortable with your appearance. Talking to people is also a main factor in maintaining mental health and stability. Telling people about anything from somebody being unfairly kicked out of the X-Factor to what you think the meaning of life may be is a key to building healthy relationships and to relieving yourself of problems you have. Share your burden. And the last factor I will point out to you is that of sleeping, probably one of the easier methods of maintaining order in your mind. But if you claim to be too busy even for this, you are in luck. A study carried out by the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and the American Cancer Society is good news for you. It claims that the idea of necessarily having 8 hours of sleep every night has no scientific basis and about 6.5 hours is perfectly sufficient, and may make you live even longer.
Thank you.

I was supposed to cover drug abuse as well, but this takes me nearly 6 minutes as it is and we are meant to have a limit of about 6 minutes.

Thanks again! =]

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