第六届希望之星大学组决赛选手盖歆：赛后感悟

　　赛后感想

　　Well, it’s time to say goodbye again. After 11 days’ stay in Beijing, things have been much more difficult than I expected.

　　Before coming to Beijing, I once had many beautiful dreams about being the final winner. Maybe because I desired victory so much that I nearly lost in the semi-final. On hearing the news that I was one of the “lucky 12”, I began to realise, actually all of a sudden, that I had all that wrong. The reason why I sacrificed a lot to come here was not to win, but to learn and to feel.

　　The night before the competition, I just had a sound sleep and I didn’t feel nervous at all the next day. But after the first 2 rounds, I totally got dumbfound. I got only No.10. In the second round—Questions and Answers, which I was particularly good at—I got the lowest score! I just felt shocked, sad and worse, frustrated. At that time, mama and my friends helped me out of that. During the break, Wenjie, the final winner of this competition, came to me and said:” Sonia, remember, you have nothing to lose here!” And all of my friends in Nanjing sent messages to me to support me. I really want to thank all of them. With their help, I came back to the stage and got the highest score in the next round. Then, I saw mama’s smile. I felt thoroughly released. It was true—I have nothing to lose here!

　　At last, I ranked No.5 in the competition. But for me, this no longer mattered. Experience is much more important than the actual result. So sometimes, I even wanted to thank God for making me No.5 and for giving me this kind of experiences. I just grew stronger through it. Now, I will no longer feel nervous speaking in front of a large crowd of people, and most importantly, I have learnt how to have the strength to carry on no matter how difficult the situation is. To this extent, No.5 is indeed much better than No.1.