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Schools

BHS Graduation Speech: Vicky Cheung

'Today is really just another day, a random Thursday no less, yet to us, it could very well be one of the most important days of our lives.'

Following is the speech senior Vicky Cheung delivered Thursday evening at :

Friends, family, faculty … enemies?

As we all know, today is an important day. It’s a day for the history books! Not only is today our graduation, it is Liam Neeson’s — Qui Gon Jinn, Aslan the Lion, and Ra’s al Ghul (no other explanation needed)—60th birthday.

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The funny thing about graduation is that, just like birthdays, it is pretty arbitrary in nature. Today is really just another day, a random Thursday no less, yet to us, it could very well be one of the most important days of our lives.

If we take the time to really think about it, graduation is a fairly strange ritual. I mean, up until now, we’ve worked our entire lives for this one moment. We’ve been looking forward to this day for so long, and it’s finally here (so guys, I’m expecting this to be good, no pressure). We’ve counted down days on our calendars, our planners, and in our phones. And here we all are—you all look very nice in your 100 percent polyester maroon and blue Snuggies, with those sturdy one-size-fits-most cardboard parallelograms sitting atop your heads and—what is this anyway?— cat toy danglies? We’re ready to walk across a stage and shake some hands, and it just seems strange that this is the culmination of our entire high school careers. This 30 second walk across the stage in this bizarro (yet quite breezy) graduation garb represents everything we’ve all worked for for at least the past 4 years, which just seems a tad bit anticlimactic to me.

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And yet, at the same time, graduation seems an oddly appropriate, perhaps even necessary, ritual for all of us to partake in. Today has many purposes. Today is a day to celebrate our accomplishments. Today serves as a reminder to the greatness and abilities that all of us possess—whether that greatness is academic, athletic, artistic, musical, or something else I’ve neglected but I’ll bet you’re REALLY good at it.

It is also a time of remembrance, when we all take a step back to reflect on all the experiences we’ve shared. Off the top of my head, I can think of being liberated from IDs on our necks by the powerful Mr. Gawel, school plays and football games, our own Mrs. Taylor writing a book, and baby seals (if you’d like to continue the nostalgia-fest, just read the cover of the yearbook).

Most importantly, though we’ve heard it hundreds of times before, today signifies the end, as well as the beginning. It is the end of our high school careers and the start of the rest of our lives, as I’m sure you’ve heard many times already. Also noteworthy, is that today is most likely the end of senioritis until we’re—appropriately—retired seniors. Life’s no cakewalk, kids, so don’t slack off.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that, yes, graduation is strange if you stop to think about it. And maybe we do put too much thought and expectation into one single day, but I think that every single one of you out there deserves this recognition. And it truly is important to commemorate certain events in our lives, because those are the only moments when things will be exactly as they are. In all likelihood, we’re never all going to be together once again, so it’s great that we get to celebrate as a mass unit. A lot is changing after today, which is terrifying, but it’s also good, because otherwise we’d all still be running around trying to be cowboys and princesses. 

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