Cue Card
Describe a time when you felt excited about an event.
You should say:
– When this was
– What the event was
– Why you were so excited
And explain if the event was worth the excitement.
It was my 18th birthday, but I still clearly recall this. Many people talk about their 18th birthday, but for me it was particularly memorable because my grandparents lived in a different state from me and we only got to see them once a year. For my 18th birthday, my parents sort of threw me a party, but it wasn’t really a party because it wasn’t like adolescence and like people my age instead it was just like an extended family gathering, I guess. It was very memorable to me because in my culture we didn’t have birthdays. As a result, meat was considered to be very unique, and as a result, we have a tradition in which, when we are joyful, we butcher an animal, invite the family, and then share a feast. It wasn’t simply because we go from being like chickens to being like a pig to being like a cow in order of, I think, how happy we are and stuff like that; instead, my parents had slaughtered a pig, so it was incredibly important to me. The fact that my grandparents were coming down and I got to see my entire extended family in one place made me feel like yeah, you know, I’m finally becoming an adult. We celebrated our birthday and had a party, and while we are Chinese, we are predominantly Christians, it was, I guess, a very Christian party. There was a lot of praying going on, and I had all my uncles from both sides of the family sort of pray over me while I was kneeling. It was a really special experience because it made me feel like my family was there to support me as I transitioned into adulthood. This is what made me so excited because it felt like a lot of people were praying for me.
Follow ups
1. What types of events do children get excited about?
– I think nowadays especially a lot of bright loud colourful events and that’s why we see music festivals really taking off and they took off in my home country as well. In high school a lot of people would go to these massive festivals with like fire like coming out like loud music and, not necessarily children too as well I mean like children’s birthday parties are always very colourful, very loud, you’ve got like entertainment coming in and things like that.
2. On what occasions do people feel both nervous and excited?
– I would probably say, in my personal experience it’s when you get your exam results, because I was always a person that studied really hard but never fully satisfied with the amount of work I’ve done so like when I go into an environment where I am about to sort of get my exam marks revealed to me, I’m always nervous like what if I do worse than I thought I would or but then it’s like you know I did a lot of work so like that’s sort of validating to me, I could get a good mark and so it’s like both exciting and extremely nerve-wracking at the same time.
3. What advice would you give to people if they were nervous about something?
– There’s a lot of general like very typical advice like or count to ten, or like slow down your breathing and things like that, but my advice would be just know like if you’ve prepared for whatever you’re nervous about and like, I heard in this podcast actually it was a really interesting podcast. They said that if you’re nervous about something it’s because you care about it right? And so a lot of events that you care about you would have prepared for right? And so if you’re prepared for the event and you’re nervous about it just sit in that moment and understand that hey, this is really important to you and that’s why you’re nervous about it but you’ve prepared and you will do well. And so that sort of leads to a little bit like confidence building p and generally you do a lot better if you’re in that sort of mindset rather than like oh, this is a huge event I’m gonna mess it up or whatever.