My graduation speech

Ahem.


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I have a few things to say before I start the rest of my speech:

In the way of our theme: At the beginning of this year there were ten people at the graduation committee meeting. In theory, committees are supposed to get things done, and our first task was to find a graduation theme. It is my experience that the third graduating class of DaVinci Academy is full of goofballs, so it was little surprise to no one that the first theme the ten of us agreed on was “tits and beer.” This theme had a range of applications, and would’ve allowed for someone jumping out of a cake, and act as an icebreaker leading to interesting conversation. As you may have noticed- this is not our theme. Additionally, this underground theme was presented again as “titsu um beerum,” to give it a more latin-official-important sounding name. It was again turned down. Probably to the relief of our parents, I’m sure.

Our current theme is about sacrifice, sacrificing who we are for who we will become – we even have pens that say it now.


In the way of the awards: Wow. I got two of them.

Stirling Miller and I had a college math class together this year, and as terrible as this makes me sound, I’d spend some time in class thinking about, “well, if he pulls an A- in this class all four quarters, I could be valedictorian.” So I cultivated my inner terrible person by plotting against him. This was before I knew that the school only counted the first semester of senior year toward class rank. All that time I spent being slightly competitive, and I should’ve been thinking, “if only he gets a B first semester.” Just kidding. Congratulations, Stirling, I know you, and Bonnie worked pretty hard. That takes a lot of dedication.

When I realized Jackson and I had been voted in as “The DaVincians” my initial reaction was, “They really do like me!” And that was exciting because for awhile I thought I’d driven you all away with my micromanagement techniques, my mood swings, and how clingy and emotional I can be. So thank you for looking past my defects long enough to see who I can’t see sometimes, the completely awesome person that I really am.

Speech-y time:

In seventh grade, Mrs. Kidd was my Utah history and social studies teacher. And because I tend to keep everything, I have a few things I’m going to show you. Most of you probably can’t see from here, but
(1) this is my bookcover from my textbook for that year, (2) this is the disclosure statement she gave for second quarter, outlining her required presentations and the project-based learning she wanted a bunch of junior high students to complete, as you can see, I turned in the portion that needed to be signed, (3) these are some notes I took for the final project in that class – a scrapbook timeline starting at 4.6 billion years ago, and (4) this is a picture of me receiving this award for excellence in history – even as a seventh grader, I was an overachiever. Let me be frank, being salutatorian feels pretty good.

Mrs. Kidd was not re-hired for the next year, and during the last few weeks of my seventh grade school year, she found DaVinci. The next year, I applied at DaVinci, and cried when they called and told me I had been accepted.

Junior high had been pretty difficult for me. I do not know what causes the separation and stereotypical social categorization that happens between elementary school and middle school, but in short, I was one of those awkward kids that spent lunch not eating, and watching other students play Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh card games. However, to be honest, even before junior high, I had very few good friends, those that I had moved away, and I was one of the kids that got picked on, not excessively, but enough. By ninth grade, I was carrying around mild depression, and was extremely self-conscious about my weight and seeming inadequacies for quite a few years. At certain points, it felt like I didn’t belong anywhere, and I had distanced myself from even my family. And that is how I came to be here.

DaVinci offered me a place to (1) start over, and (2) be myself, whoever that person might be. It’s been an adventure every day, and while that self-conscious teenager from Roy Jr. High sometimes still exists, I am an overall more confident person than I was four years ago. Probably happier, more responsible, I can only hope more grown up, and what I’ve noticed in the last year or so, I am able to be a part of my family again, which increasingly becomes more important to me. I don’t really know what the education part of it is playing, but I know that the people I have met while at DaVinci have contributed greatly to this transformation.

When I become the next Jesus- Ghandi -Obama, I want you all to know that it was you who helped me become great.

Let’s see. So far, I have found confidence, and the knowledge that I am really as awesome as I am… the only thing is for someone to give me a lot of money -

I spent more time at DaVinci Academy than I did in my own room. I belonged to the old time radio club, the gaming club, the world religion club a.k.a. the atheist club a.k.a. agnostics anonymous for Bible Club President Sydney Simonson, I participated in the accredidation committees, spent the last two years with the Parent-Teacher-Student-Organization, helped student council when they asked, spent countless hours with Megan to try and motivate and improve student body morale- you’ve all heard of “Speak: It’s your right.” “Change: It Happens” and “You: There’s only one.”, right? - worked for three and a half years on literary magazines, ran the anime club, tried to start poetry slams, put flagstone in the front of the building as part of my Girl Scout Gold Award, picked aluminum out of the trash cans, tried to start Free Hug Campaigns... But someone did not tell me that the kind of activities colleges look for are not necessarily school ones – if I had really wanted a lot of money, I should have spent my time out in the community, at adoption drives, at homeless shelters, helping elderly women cross the street. But I can’t help it if the community that I belong to is DaVinci.

Thankfully, the University of Utah recognized how cool I am, and how much money they really wanted to give me. So in the fall, I’m going to be in the honors program at the U of U, figuring out what I’m going to do with my life. Mrs. Kidd likes to tell me on occasion that they haven’t yet invented the job field I’m going to go into. Has anyone ever heard of a job where you get to wear a pikachu costume, do community service and care a lot about other people? It sounds kind of like prison, but yeah, I haven’t either.

A few weeks ago when my good friend Jackson and I were heading to a play about Mormons and aliens, we realized a few things:
DaVinci has a cycle- every few years it seems like it has to prove to itself that it can mess up something good, like letting go of important teachers, or instating a dress code, or having extreme financial difficulties, or booking the wrong Jon Stewart and having the Amy Stuart reporters out there give us bad press. The class of 2009 has debatably survived and overcome the majority of these difficulties.
Jackson and I had a theory. This DaVinci cycle is a conspiracy. It is a conspiracy cooked up by the school administration, the board, and the Ogden community to put a group of kids in a situation where they will have to survive specific and challenging conditions, that seem cruel, unusual, and inconsiderate to who we are as people. This is to breed a group of individuals that are socially aware and active, and will help with the revitalization of the Ogden community locally, and allow them to go forth into the broader global community to be social agents of change.

“What a self-serving scheme!” I thought to myself. Little do the conspirators know that this system will backfire on them, should they remain as uncaring and inhumane as they have been in the past.
We are not emotionless lab rats to test your social experiments on.

But because of this, the class of 2009 will be able to do exactly that, if they so choose, go out and be contributing members of society, able to overcome social and political obstacles wherever they arise. Because of this, we are strong. I guess the administration’s goal was achieved, although, on some occasions we will be exactingly bitter and cynical on the matter.

In a far away land known as the Kanto region, a ten-year-old boy left his home in the town of Pallet to pursue his dream of becoming a Pokemon Master. It is not easy for him, but eventually he becomes one of the most recognized Pokemon Trainers… in the ninth season, Battle Frontier. Not many people know this about Ash Ketchum, and they immediately assume that he is just a child from a children’s television show, where his character amounts to nothing in the real world. But considering that he left home at a young age, travels thousands of miles with his closest friends, lives on his own, wins and loses depending on his own skill, gets attacked on a daily basis, maintains his integrity when faced with “evil,” and still amounts to something great in his own world, I think he is overly underestimated.

For the last four years, I have grown up with a collection of Ash Ketchums, my graduating class. While none of you, to my knowledge, have a best friend named Pikachu, and you don’t go around challenging everyone in the area to a Pokemon battle, you have all had your struggles- you’ve made friends, lost friends, overcome social circumstances, political circumstances, left something at a young age emotionally or physically, and on a daily basis are underestimated by yourselves, your peers, or society as a whole. But I hope you never consider your situation hopeless, and your struggles fruitless, because one day, perseverance is going to pay off for all of you, because not one of you is un-great. When you’re offered a position in the Battle Frontier, and turn them down because you know your journey toward self-awareness isn’t over, I will not be surprised. But, I will be proud to have known you. Congratulations, class of 2009. Many good vibes and love. xoxoxo.