Mobile Phones: A Necessary Tool? (Imitate phone ringing) Ring-ring! Ring-ring!

Ah, thats my buddy playing missed calls with me. (Imitate phone beeping) B-beep! Oh, its a SMS from my mum, asking whether I will be back for dinner. Mobile phones, once the preserve of the high-powered businessperson, are now a vital part of daily life for an enormous amount of people. If I were to see a show of hands, Im sure that 90 percent of the audience here owns a handphone. And if you do not, I can only think of two reasons why you dont. First, it might be that you are too shy to admit it, or secondly, your parents forbid you to own one. From schoolchildren to pensioners, every section of society has found that it is much easier now to stay in touch when youve got a mobile. Over the past few years, mobile phones have become more and more advanced, with built-in cameras, global positioning devices, bluetooth, internet access and many, many more. Now, we can start to see the arrival of the third generation of mobile phones: powerful microcomputers with broadband internet access, which will allow us to watch TV, download internet files at high speed and send instant video clips to family and friends. Yes, with features that gets better and better every day, the mobile phone is becoming more and more necessary in our daily lives.

A very good morning I bid to the Chairperson, wise and honorable adjudicators, as well as members of the floor. I stand here before you today to present my speech on the topic of Mobile Phones: A Necessary Tool?

Ladies and gentlemen, the development of mobile phones brought convenience and advantages to the world. With new models such as the Nokia 9500, communication between people is easier and speedier. Nevertheless, every coin has two sides. The disadvantages brought along with the fast-growing technology cannot be ignored. Not only do these problems influence people, society is also affected. First of all, mobile phone addiction is a BIG social problem. Psychiatrists believe that mobile phone addiction is becoming one of the BIGGEST non-drug addictions in the 21st century can you believe it?! Along with the age drop of mobile phones users and the ease of prepaid method provided by system operators such as Maxis and Digi, most teenagers now own their own handphones and network service. With attractive packages such as Hotlink by Maxis and Xpax by Celcom, teenagers are practically glued to their own sets every minute of the day. You can always see teenagers either chatting away, busy typing text messages or personalising their phones with funky ring tones and pictures at almost every corner of a shopping mall. Well, if sending text messages via handphones is one of the events in the Olympic Games, Im sure some of us here will be part of the Malaysian contingent to Beijing in 2008!

Owning a mobile phone can sometimes disrupt your own privacy. Imagine, youre having a peaceful afternoon nap when your phone rings. As you might not want to miss anything urgent or important, you hastily pick up the phone. You answer it only to find that it is just a friend who wants to tell you the latest gossip. Oh God! Wouldnt that be irritating!!! Besides, when you are on leave, your superiors can contact you any time and like it or not, ask you to get back to work due to some emergencies. Wow! Think of the happy faces of your family becoming ugly frowns upon hearing this devastating news.

Ladies and gentlemen, try imagining a loving couple having a candlelit dinner in a prestigious five-star hotel. As both of them are deep in conversation and romancing, suddenly, the young mans handphone starts to ring. So wanting to ignore it and continue gazing into his girlfriends beautiful eyes, it will be rather rude not to answer his mothers phone call. As his thumb gets ready to hit the green Answer button, he accidentally hits the loudspeaker button as well. I am sure you can imagine what is going to happen next. Its totally embarrassing, isnt it? Boy ah boy, have you headed home to take a shower yet? You wont want to go smelling like salted fish when you pick up your girlfriend for dinner right? Blah blah blah Due to the young mans clumsiness, he caused himself and probably his girlfriend too the embarrassment of the lifetime. Who would like patrons from other tables bringing out their non-stop giggles and finger-pointing?

There is also another situation where handphones might be a pest instead of an asset. Guess where? Right, at the movies! Although there is always a message reminding moviegoers to switch off their handphones before the start of the movie, I can always see people answering phone calls or reply messages during the show is being screened. Try picturing this. You are trying your best to understand what is going on between the police spy and the baddies. Suddenly, odd voices drifted into your ears. Huh? How can an English film turn out to be multilingual? You turn around to find someone talking pretty loudly into his mobile phone. Harlo? Harlo? Eh, lu mana ah? APA! MEH AH?! Haiyor wait lah wait lah. Isnt this familiar to you as moviegoers? How annoying. Of course, you dont pay 8 Ringgit to hear a man speak broken English, but to enjoy the movie! After this, who would still want to continue watching? All your interest has been taken away by man trying to steal the limelight from the hero! Moreover, peoples timekeeping has changed. You will be amazed to know that not long ago, people made spoken arrangements to meet at a certain place on a certain time. Once its fixed, they just meet as agreed. Somewhere around this new millennium, this practice is starting to die out. Meeting times became approximate, subject to change any moment under the new order of communication, the Short Messaging Service or SMS! Going to be late? Send a text message! It takes much less effort than arriving on time,

and its much less awkward than explaining your lateness face-to-face. What would you say? Hey, sorry! My cat pooped on the floor and I had to clean it. Then my mum dropped by for a visit. Finally when I was ready to leave, my neighbour came to chat with me. Like that? No way! A simple SMS will solve the problem!

Like email before this, the 160-characters limit in text messages has altered the way we write in English, bringing more short forms and abbreviations and a more lax approach to the language construction. Traditional rules of grammar and spelling become much less important. Instead of spelling out Great! Love to have you for dinner. See you later! one has to only type g-r-8-l-u-v-2-h-v-u-4-d-i-n-n-e-r-c-u-la-t-e-r to express his or her pleasure of having a friend over for dinner.

Ladies and gentlemen, Alexander Graham Bell would be amazed if he could see how far the science of telephone has progressed in less than 150 years and how irritating it might sometimes be to mankind. He might even regret inventing the telephone at first, as it has caused many countless social problems. No, Im not saying that mobile phones are not useful. Oh yes, it has benefited us in many ways. Therefore, I hope each and every one of us here would be more considerate and rational when utilizing this modern gadget. Let Alexander Graham Bell know that his invention has been put to good use.

B-Beep! B-Beep! Hey! Is that your SMS? Just kidding! With that, I thank you.

Music Assalamualaikum and a very good morning to my fellow friends, teachers and judges. Today, on this fine morning, I would like to present to you a public speech about Music.

Music. We hear it every day. No matter where we are, music will always be played either on the radio or just by humming a tune. Did you know that music started as early as the Paleolithic era? So music is about 200 000 years old. Wow! Its so old. Still people enjoy listening to this old art for nearly 200 millenniums. Music is an art which uses sound as its main medium. The word music originated from a Greek word mousike (musikis), which means art of the Muses (Muses). The Muses are the Goddesses of Greek who loves art and literature.

The elements needed to produce music are pitch, rhythm and dynamics. The pitch is the combination of melody and harmony. Rhythm is the beat of the music. Dynamics are the volume. At first the song starts soft then it gradually starts to get loud. Suddenly theres an accent and everything settles down and dies away. An object needs to be vibrated in order to produce sound. Lets take a guitar for example. We pluck the strings in order to vibrate them. The sound waves then enter the hollow wood and echoes in order to make the sound louder. How about a woodwind and a brass instrument? Ah, but theres a catch. These two instruments are the same but they are not alike. Both instruments need puff power. But a woodwind instrument uses holes to indicate different notes whilst the brass family uses valves.

Some standard orchestral instrumental families are the strings family, as in pianos, guitars, violins and so on. Next, the woodwind family. For example, flutes, recorders, bassoons and others. Lastly, the brass family. The family consists of trumpets, French horns, tubas and others. Sometimes, people use imaginary instruments like the air guitar. They are just basically strumming like a guitar but without a guitar. Still the song is playing in their heads.

The music genre is generally endless. It ranges from Acapella to Fusion jazz, Gaana to Muzak also known as the music you here in elevators, Nagauta, a kind of Japanese style of music, to Rumba, Sabar to

Zydeco. Sabar is not the Malay word for relax. It is a drumming style found in Senegal. Have you heard? Theres another genre coming! Revolution Pop is created by Usher Raymond. Oh, you know! Hes Justin Biebers mentor. The most popular genres that we hear nowadays are pop, dominated by the late King of Pop, Micheal Jackson. Rock, conquered by Elvis Presley. Punk, played by bands like Green Day and Paramore. Country written by Taylor Swift and a few others. But the only thing I cant deny is that the most popular genre right now is K-pop or Korean Pop. Boy bands like Super Junior and girl groups such as 2NE1 are examples of artists who gets involve in K-pop. Boys and girls are going nuts over the artists.

Through music and the lyrics, a massage could be passed through. Moral values could also be found in them. Some song lyrics contain impolite words which should be avoided as it could contaminate the thought. Motivating songs could boost and motivate anyone who listens to it.

Composers are people whose job is to make music. Music could come out as complex as it sounds or even as easy as just making up a tune by humming. It may sound difficult but if you have the will to learn and create music, then it wont be that difficult. An example of a classical composer that we always hear but seldom know is Ludwig van Beethoven who wrote the song entitled Fr Elise. At the age of 26, Ludwig van Beethoven started to lose his sense of hearing. He gradually became deaf but that did not stop him from creating more fantastic music. Dont know whos Beethoven? How about we take someone local. Edry Abdul Halim. One of the members of a boy band with the name KRU. He has created music for many Akademi Fantasia candidates and many are a hit!

Music is written theoretically and made real practically. It lives in every one of us. Music is like an international language. Even though we do not understand the lyrics but we understand the melody. The rhythm. The harmony. Everything starts small. In music, it starts with a note. Then, a tune. After that, a rhythm and a melody. Finally, a harmonious song that unites everyone disregarding the race or the background or whatever at all was born. Music unites the souls of Malaysia and the world. Guess what! We enjoy it!

Thank you and Assalamualaikum.