For my friends from Morton East's graduating Class of 2003, I offer my Valedictorian speech in its entirety to you. Write your opinions in the Guestbook on the bottom of this page.
A couple things first...
1)I was EXTREMELY nervous when I delivered it.
2)I was NOT drunk.
3)I didn't intend to sound drunk.
4)I didn't realize how funny my voice sounded until I heard myself on the loudspeaker.
This is the original version of the speech before my last minute editing and ad libbing, including all the errors and stuff.
"Good evening parents, grandparents, siblings, and other family. Good evening to the teachers and administrators. And an especially good evening to my fellow members of the Class of ’03. I’m and happy and proud to speak before you, my colleagues and my peers. I hold you all in the highest esteem as you all have finally shown yourself worthy of graduating from an institution that has harbored us for four years…four LONG years. I don’t know about all of you, but four years in high school have seemed to be an eternity to me. But, it was once said that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, and I’m sure that none of us are leaving Morton East without some kind of new knowledge, and it doesn’t have to be something you learned in class either. With this newfound wisdom, many of us are now heading off to a new era of higher learning. To me it seems as if we are escaping the hell that I call high school, only to find that the real world is so much worse. We are all going to realize that high school provided us with protection, and nothing is what it I really like “out there”. In college, there’s no turning in things late, no partying until 5 o’ clock when you have class at 8; there’s no special treatment because you were Prom Queen or Valedictorian at your high school. You have to realize that as soon as we walked out of that school for the last time, we were officially “out there”, in the real world. “Out there”, we have so much more freedom, but so much more responsibility. It takes a smart person to realize what their responsibilities are, and an even smarter person to act on them. And by smart, I do not mean that kid who sits in the front row of seats in your history class that knows everything that the teachers asks. I do not mean that guy who gets all the best grades. This does not measure how smart a person is. Grades measure performance, and GPA and test scores alone don’t tell you anything about how smart someone is. In my opinion, someone who is perceived to be smart because they know a lot of stuff isn’t always as smart as one might think. You might know how big a Komodo dragon is, and you might know the capital of Yemen, but how is this knowledge put to use? Knowledge is power, but what good is power if it has no use? A truly smart individual is one that has knowledge that is relevant. A smart person knows who he/she is, how to distinguish between wants and needs, what his/her potential is, what his/her ideals are, etc. and not just a bunch of facts and trivia that passes for intelligence on Jeopardy. A smart person knows what it’s like “out there”. It takes a smart person to not only realize that humans are not perfect and that life is essentially unfair, but also to realize that this shouldn’t stop him/her from living life. A lot of people here want to go off to college to get smarter, to learn their lessons at a higher institution from well-learned professors. However, getting smarter is something that can’t be taught by even the most well known and esteemed professors. It must be self-taught. Only you can learn what your responsibilities are, both to yourself and to others. Your responsibility to yourself: find yourself, find your values, find your morals, figure out what kind of person you are, and stand by your beliefs. You also must take responsibility for not only your actions, but also your emotions. It’s very easy to get caught in that trap where you begin thinking too much about things where you completely disregard your feelings. If you’re feeling a certain way about something, don’t be afraid to let your emotions come out. Your responsibility to others: respect them. We all expect others to respect our personal opinions, but we must also be willing to do the same for others. One thing that we all must remember that no two people are exactly the same, so we must respect that we are all different people with differing views, cultures, behaviors, and preferences. If you’re the type of person that likes to push your opinion on others, then you are not respecting their right to be different. So, I say to you all, you are now entering the real world, and it takes a smart person to survive, but I can’t think of anyone on this stage that is not capable of it. So to quote a line from Shakespeare “To thine own self be true”, and you will all the wiser. Now, as I conclude my words for the night, I would just like to offer a little bit of advice to the Class of 2003. Look around at your fellow classmates, your colleagues, and your friends. For many of you, this will be the last time you will see one another for a long time, so I ask you to savor this moment. I also implore that if any of you harbor any grudges against anyone else for whatever reason, now is the time to reconcile and let them go. As Eddie Vedder once put it, “You can spend your time alone redigesting past regrets, or you can come to terms and realize you’re the only one who cannot forgive yourself”. These are the people you spent a good part of your high school years with. Don’t let petty arguments and bitter feelings ruin the relationships that I know have influenced you throughout the past four years. If you ever have memories of our days here, I want to make sure that they are happy memories, where we as young, eager students all came together under one roof as freshman, and leave as seniors, all the wiser, towards our first venture “out there”. Now as I conclude, I am at a loss for words for how to convey my feelings about this day to you all, but I think I can sum it up through a piece written by Eddie Vedder.
And I wait for so long, cannot stay/ all the precious moments, cannot stay/ it’s not like wings have fallen, cannot stay/ but still something’s missing, cannot say/ Holding hands are daughters and sons/ and their faiths are falling down…/ I have wished for so long/ how I wish for you today We all walk the long road, cannot stay/ there’s no need to say goodbye/ All the friends and family/ all the memories going round…/ I have wished for so long/ how I wish for you today And the wind keeps roaring/ and the sky keeps turning gray/ and the sun is setting/ the sun will rise another day/ I have wished for so long/ how I wish for you today We all walk the long road…
I wish you all the best of luck on that long road, and until our paths cross again, I bid you farewell, and hope that your future turns out the way you want. Class of 2003, I salute you. Thank you very much." - Rafael Navarro
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