Graduation Speeches

Why are graduation speeches even a thing? I had to give one and I completely dreaded it. I was a member of the class of 2009. My class had just 50 kids in it. And yet I hate public speaking, especially in front of about 400 people.  So I just want to know, is it supposed to be a reward? You did so well in school that you get to force people to listen to whatever you feel like talking about for as long as you feel like talking about it.  Some people would probably love that but not me.  For me, it was more of a punishment, like you did so well in school that we're forcing you to say things to people who for the majority don't even care that you exist. Fantastic.  So for my speech I just read a poem I wrote earlier on in high school and ended it with congrats to the class of 2009. Short and sweet.  And then during the grad night party, one of the popular guys had the audacity to say he would have done a better speech and I wasted my opportunity.  I told him I would have gladly let him speak instead of me if that was allowed and I hate public speaking.  Not to mention that when you graduate you have to wear some of the ugliest clothes known to man.  And my hair was being ridiculous that day too.  So I was really just glad to get it over with.

Here's another fun story about graduating from high school.  The day of graduation, I went to put on my pretty "new" thrift store dress and it didn't fit.  Because my biceps were too big, of all things.  In the last part of my senior year, to avoid some hardcore senioritis, I took two PE classes a day out of my five daily classes.  One of them was tumbling, for a second time, because I had a goal to learn how to cartwheel (which I did) and because the first time I took it, I had an appendectomy and had to sit out for about three months while I healed.  Pretty much everything in tumbling involved upper body strength, from handstands to cartwheels and roundoffs.  So I got pretty big arm muscles over the course of that class and consequently my dress no longer fit.  And I was just finding out the day of.  When I was already sick to my stomach with nervousness.  Awesome.  I called my best friend, and between her younger sister and her, they had a really pretty dress that fit me perfectly and they let me borrow it.  So that got taken care of about an hour before graduation. Eep. Talk about a close call.

yuck