Tomorrow, June 5, is my last day at The College of Staten Island High School for International Studies. Tomorrow, will also be the last day I'll ever get to skip gym class and nap in the senior lounge.
When I chose to go to a scary new 'International' school in eighth grade, instead of a pretty safe- choice private school, my parent's should have known then that it would set the tone of my decision making for the next four years.
I have made some pretty stupid mistakes. Dated the wrong guys, wore the wrong clothes, made the wrong friends... I even got some really shitty grades here and there too.
But the beautiful thing about high school, is that we learn our mistakes and decisions do not define us. What defines us is how we choose to handle the outcome of them.
I can honestly say I love every single one of my fellow Dragons, even if one of you did sleep with my freshman year boyfriend. (Everyone has redeeming qualities, right?.... Maybe?....)
Hate is a pointless emotion that I choose not to possess. Hate to me is wanting to see someone else is some sort of emotional or physical pain. Someone else's pain could never be my gain.
Going into high school I thought I was going to be that cool- but- not- cool outcast artsy girl who wore all black and supported obscure humanitarian organizations. Well, I may to this day be known as 'Unicef Girl,' but it turns out I became the preppy cheerleading captain who found out she could not wear black, she is a ginger, and it makes her look like a bruised pale pumpkin. I also found out that stereotypes are one of the largest causes of violence in this world. Labeling someone different automatically makes them unlike you, leading to the hate of things unfamiliar and unknown.
We're all the same. My blood is as red as yours.
When someone asks me, "Do you consider yourself a hipster or a prep," (which I assume is because I'm a vegetarian & also a cheerleader) my answer is always, "I consider myself Victoria."
You and I, we all have our own stories, we all have things that divide us. But it is those things that divide us that we can not let separate us, but bring us together.
High school has taught me to embrace, to love, and to never judge.
I auditioned for the Graduate Address at my school's graduation this year. Although I didn't get the part, I would still like to share it...
*Note before reading that in my school they lock the bathroom for ten minutes after every period starts to promote not wandering in the hallway and all of that fun stuff that we still do anyway*
In a perfect world, we don’t have to worry about terrorism, war, gender equality, or if it’s ten minutes after the period so we can go to the bathroom. Everything that’s happening in this world around us, it’s scary, no doubt about it. It’s not easy to wake up in the morning and say, “Today I’m going to do something good for myself and the world.” I don’t know about you guys but the first thing I think about when I wake up is where the closest cup of coffee is. In the wise words of a teacher that many of us have had the privilege of being taught by in the past four years, “We all make choices.” Yes, our world is not perfect. Yes, it’s not easy to succeed or be successful. & Yes, you do have to wait another five minutes to use the bathroom, it’s still locked. But. We can choose to change. Change ourselves, change our surrounds, our outcomes. & change the world. The beauty about the College of Staten Island High School for International Studies, is it gave us the choice. The choice to be ourselves, the choice to challenge ourselves. The choice, to discover ourselves. Every morning when you walked in that door, you knew you were going to learn not only something new about the world, but about yourself as well. If you’re sitting in a seat right now with a cap and gown on, you can say you have been personally victimized by Regina George, I mean CSI HIGH... But in the best way possible. YOU have learned that maybe you don’t want to be an accountant, but an archeologist, that you want to be a teacher just like one of the many you were probably inspired by in high school, that you want to join the peace core, become president, BE THE NEXT GHANDI... CSI has taught us that it’s perfectly fine to not be extrodanary though. That being normal is AWESOME. Ya, PHd’s are great, but so are the men that work hard every day delivering our mail. Maybe none of us will be visiting the moon anytime soon, but maybe every single one of us in this room is going to push ourselves to exceed our own limits and become a better us. Become better people. Become better global citizens. The beauty about education, especially a one like we have been provided with the past four years, is that you can do whatever you want with it. You can take this diploma from this stage in a few moments and say, “I earned this, I deserved this, and now I’m going to do what I believe is best for me with it.” Knowledge is the key to all doors. My parents always told me that an educated person can conqure the world. Well Mom & Dad, I took you very literally. Because at CSI, my fellow classmates and I conquered every obsitcle we were thrown. We worked our butts off, we made it into some of the top colleges in the country, and with the help of the amazing support system we’ve had for the past four years, we are here today. It is because of CSI that every one of us has discovered things about ourselves we may have never known. It is because of the hallways with every flag you could ever imagine, the teachers that never gave up, the students with a friendly smile, the mini fridge in Ms. Lentini’s office, the welcoming energy the school gave off, that we were able to be ourselves. & because we can be ourselves, we can be and do whatever. Mine & your possibilities... They are endless.
Congrats class of 2013, your ten minutes after the period are up, you may go to the bathroom now.
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