So wow, I graduated today. WOOO! I am no longer a high school student. Well, erm, I have to do an art project tomorrow and fill out my calendario and such, but I'm mostly done with high school. Ok time for me to take a moment of boring reflection on what all this means, ok? Ok. I always thought I had it together . . . I was taking honors courses, college courses, straight-A's, blah blah blah. My plan was to go to a fantastic college, get a fantastic job, blah blah blah. Until a few months ago, that was still what I expected. But I've learned that graduating doesn't make me automatically know what I want to do with my life. I've also learned that just because I am qualified and just because a college states that no student will be unable to attend for financial reasons . . . well, neither of those means I will go to a good college. Further, I've learned that the government will do everything in its power to avoid giving me any money for college, i.e. basing its judgment on my parents' gross income and then telling us that my parents can afford to contribute 25% of that to my education. RIGHT. Ok enough of that. The graduation was so awesome, I'm really glad I went. Out of 30 students, only 14 showed. Every single student had something outstanding about them . . . seriously. One kid just won a national award for being a young entrepeneur (spelled wrong? I don't care) because he runs his own business. Another guy is an amazing singer. One girl recently had a baby. Another girl has been working full time, attending ballet school full time, and doing her high school coursework. The list went on and on . . . I know all this because each student's teacher talked about the graduate a little before presenting the diploma. It really made me wish I had known all these kids . . . sadly, today was the first time I met any of them and probably the last time I will see them. Jake and Ben showed up, and they brought this dewd named Gabe. Jake and Ben don't show up in these pages often because I don't hang out with them. They only live like an hour away but we never get together for some reason, probably me. Anyway, Ben used to be my best friend, we went to the prom together, and stuff. I love him to death and it was great to see him. Jake is Ben's friend and roommate, and although they were like best buds when we were all in high school together (public school that is, they graduated two years ahead of me), Jake and I were never close. In fact, the couple of times Jake and I did hang out in high school were odd accidents. But we email each other all the time now. He's an absolute doll. Today he gave me a card and it has a little mark on the inside. He wrote: "Sorry about this [the mark] but it had some stupid thing like 'Happy Birthday' so that would not work. Well good stuff. yeah. Good to be out of school. Ok, well hope you're stoked n junk. Love, Jake." See? See why he's so dear to me? Anyway, they brought their friend Gabe along. What motivation he had for coming, I do not know. Graduations are boring enough as it is, and much more so when you don't even know anyone graduating. Oh well, he was cool though. Very honest, I like that. I invited them all on the hiking trip and he said, "To be honest, I'm not interested." And I thought, "MAN! If only everyone were that honest, life would be so much easier." Oh yeah, and I gave a speech. I have never had any problems with public speaking, but I was not very confident for this speech. I honestly felt like it was the worst one I'd ever written I(and believe me, I've written tons). To make things worse, I was all thirsty so my mouth was dry and I felt like my voice had escaped. I did the best I could, but I didn't feel that it turned out well. However, one of my fellow graduates (the ballet dancer) came up to me afterward and told me how meaningful what I said was for her. Apparently, a bunch of people complimented the speech to my parents, as well. And, for the first time, my dad had videotaped the speech so I got to see how I did. I found out that I delivered it a lot better than I thought. I still feel like the content was like a bunch of graduation cards strung together, but you can judge for yourself on that. The text is here. |