At the end of the movie Blade Runner, Roy Batty - an android who has reached the last gasp of his life span - mentions a couple of magic moments from his life; the kind of moments that might not be world-changing but that stand out in his memory because of beauty or uniqueness or personal significance:

“I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe.
Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion.
I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate.
All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.”

If you were to give a speech like that, what are some of the things you might mention?

Some of mine, off the top of my head:

I did a fencing match with full fencing gear on the tarmac of Vancouver Airport while the red sun was setting and the jets were thundering through the air just above our heads.

From a podium in Iwata, Japan, I gave a totally improvised speech to a crowd of 500 Japanese students who responded in perfect unison to my initial greeting.

In the middle of the night I broadcast a heavy metal radio show from a candlelit church in a snow storm-ridden Stockholm.

I rode a scooter (with my loved one on the back) through the rural farmlands of western China as we were being pounded with torrential rain and splashing through knee-deep potholes and dodging random herds of cows.

Not quite as cool as c-beams or attack ships on fire maybe but special to me, lol.

Share some of your magic moments, be they big or small, dramatic or subtle.

I was chased by a gun-toting guard and slept in a favela in northern Brazil.

I boated down the streets Ha Noi, Viet Nam after a typhoon.

I taught 6 year old Koreans to sing 'Purple Rain'.

I shared kisses with two Japanese girl friends in Osaka, Japan on New Years Eve.

I was treated to a three course dinner and puppet show by a Rajput family in India.

I performed in a band improvisation for a group of seals down the Beagle Channel off the southern most tip of Argentina.

JDInteractive said:

I was chased by a gun-toting guard and slept in a favela in northern Brazil.

I boated down the streets Ha Noi, Viet Nam after a typhoon.

I taught 6 year old Koreans to sing 'Purple Rain'.

I shared kisses with two Japanese girl friends in Osaka, Japan on New Years Eve.

I was treated to a three course dinner and puppet show by a Rajput family in India.

I performed in a band improvisation for a group of seals down the Beagle Channel off the southern most tip of Argentina.

Those all sound like really cool moments, especially the dinner and puppet show in India. I really want to go there as soon as possible. Experiencing the favelas must have been very interesting too, but probably saddening and a bit scary as well I would imagine?

Now I'm just hoping that we haven't scared off everybody else by posting all globe-trotting stuff. Stories from back home are more than welcome too!

retina said:

At the end of the movie Blade Runner, Roy Batty - an android who has reached the last gasp of his life span - mentions a couple of magic moments from his life; the kind of moments that might not be world-changing but that stand out in his memory because of beauty or uniqueness or personal significance:

“I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe.
Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion.
I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate.
All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.”

If you were to give a speech like that, what are some of the things you might mention?

Some of mine, off the top of my head:

I did a fencing match with full fencing gear on the tarmac of Vancouver Airport while the red sun was setting and the jets were thundering through the air just above our heads.

From a podium in Iwata, Japan, I gave a totally improvised speech to a crowd of 500 Japanese students who responded in perfect unison to my initial greeting.

In the middle of the night I broadcast a heavy metal radio show from a candlelit church in a snow storm-ridden Stockholm.

I rode a scooter (with my loved one on the back) through the rural farmlands of western China as we were being pounded with torrential rain and splashing through knee-deep potholes and dodging random herds of cows.

Not quite as cool as c-beams or attack ships on fire maybe but special to me, lol.

Share some of your magic moments, be they big or small, dramatic or subtle.

Very cool moments.

I'll have to think about mine.

I don't know if they'd make a very exciting speech, but these are some of the moments that come to mind right now:

Looking at my first child the moment she was born. I was 18, and it was utterly earth-shattering to see what had been a part of my body for most of a year, suddenly appear as an entire human being.

Laying eyes on my now-husband for the first time. I was on a balcony, leaning over the railing, and he was walking across the parking lot, pulling a rolling suitcase behind him. I called out to him, and he looked up at me with the sweetest smile. I could tell you exactly what he was wearing, and how his hair curled out from under his Yankees ball cap. It's a moment I still think of all the time.

Speaking on a televised panel about poverty and single parenthood. I was a founding member of a grassroots community organizing group made up of single mothers advocating on our own behalf. It was scary and exhilarating to be the representative of our group up there speaking. For some reason, I've never watched it.

On the Caribbean island of St. John, I saw a tree that was growing right up out of the ocean. Right there in the shallow water. I climbed it in my bikini and sat at the top, looking out at the ocean and over the green of the island.

PunkMistress said:

I don't know if they'd make a very exciting speech, but these are some of the moments that come to mind right now:

Looking at my first child the moment she was born. I was 18, and it was utterly earth-shattering to see what had been a part of my body for most of a year, suddenly appear as an entire human being.

Laying eyes on my now-husband for the first time. I was on a balcony, leaning over the railing, and he was walking across the parking lot, pulling a rolling suitcase behind him. I called out to him, and he looked up at me with the sweetest smile. I could tell you exactly what he was wearing, and how his hair curled out from under his Yankees ball cap. It's a moment I still think of all the time.

Speaking on a televised panel about poverty and single parenthood. I was a founding member of a grassroots community organizing group made up of single mothers advocating on our own behalf. It was scary and exhilarating to be the representative of our group up there speaking. For some reason, I've never watched it.

On the Caribbean island of St. John, I saw a tree that was growing right up out of the ocean. Right there in the shallow water. I climbed it in my bikini and sat at the top, looking out at the ocean and over the green of the island.

Those all sound like wonderful moments, and you describe them well. I can't exactly identify with feeling excited by the sight of jerseykrs but other than that it's easy to visualize your experiences, lol.

To see your child for the first time must be mind-boggling at any age so to get to do that at eighteen must have been totally surreal. I think one of my first thoughts would be "how am I supposed to keep this fragile little thing alive? help!".

The tree in the Caribbean sounds like a beautiful scene from a fairy tale...with a naughty twist, since it's hard to think of it as an innocent technicolor world when it features you wearing a bikini, lol. It would actually make an amazing photograph.

retina said:

PunkMistress said:

I don't know if they'd make a very exciting speech, but these are some of the moments that come to mind right now:

Looking at my first child the moment she was born. I was 18, and it was utterly earth-shattering to see what had been a part of my body for most of a year, suddenly appear as an entire human being.

Laying eyes on my now-husband for the first time. I was on a balcony, leaning over the railing, and he was walking across the parking lot, pulling a rolling suitcase behind him. I called out to him, and he looked up at me with the sweetest smile. I could tell you exactly what he was wearing, and how his hair curled out from under his Yankees ball cap. It's a moment I still think of all the time.

Speaking on a televised panel about poverty and single parenthood. I was a founding member of a grassroots community organizing group made up of single mothers advocating on our own behalf. It was scary and exhilarating to be the representative of our group up there speaking. For some reason, I've never watched it.

On the Caribbean island of St. John, I saw a tree that was growing right up out of the ocean. Right there in the shallow water. I climbed it in my bikini and sat at the top, looking out at the ocean and over the green of the island.

Those all sound like wonderful moments, and you describe them well. I can't exactly identify with feeling excited by the sight of jerseykrs but other than that it's easy to visualize your experiences, lol.

To see your child for the first time must be mind-boggling at any age so to get to do that at eighteen must have been totally surreal. I think one of my first thoughts would be "how am I supposed to keep this fragile little thing alive? help!".

The tree in the Caribbean sounds like a beautiful scene from a fairy tale...with a naughty twist, since it's hard to think of it as an innocent technicolor world when it features you wearing a bikini, lol. It would actually make an amazing photograph.

I felt surprisingly confident as a mother, even though I was so young. I spent my pregnancy reading everything I could get my hands on from natural birthing techinques to raising a feminist child, eating only organic everything, and seeking advice from older mothers. It was extremely important to me to be a great mom, especially since everyone was expecting me not to be.