Let me begin by saying that I am very honored to be addressing the County High School Class of 2012 as students of this institution for the last time. We've spent these last four years creating some serious memories: four years of chieftain power, leaking roofs, questionable Homecoming skits, and musical principals. Four years of good teachers, bad teachers, new teachers, old teachers. Four years of youth, music, growing up and breaking free. Four rubber chickens, four yearbooks, four ASB presidents and four chubby bunnies. But consider this question for a moment: what is your single biggest regret from the past four years? If you could go back in time and change one thing, what would it be? I asked Ms. Parks to pose this question to two classes full of Seniors and I have here some responses. For those of you who answered, thank you very much for your honest and thoughtfulness. Now some of us, in pondering our biggest regret, probably think immediately of a relationship we've had. Here are some examples: "I regret having the same boyfriend throughout high school." "I regret putting so much time and emotion into one person, when that one person should have been me." A very common subject of regret was decisions people made concerning academics: "I regret screwing around during my first years of high school because I had to make it up and almost didn't graduate." "I never studied or did all my work in classes, and slacked off when I have the potential of a 4.0 GPA." There's a note at the bottom of this one, it says, "Oh, well, I've got another chance." On a somewhat similar note, behavioral regret made a strong showing among our class: "My biggest regret is waking up and not knowing what I did the night before." "Letting Robbie Ford eat crab cakes on Prom night." "100 hours of disciplinary community service." "I made so many stupid mistakes, disrespecting my friends and family. Thinking drugs were the thing to do. I was stupid!" Occasionally, we have had to deal with watching our friends struggle. By the time we summon the courage to take action or offer help, it is often too late. "I regret standing by and doing nothing while people I cared about destroyed themselves." "My biggest regret -- not forgiving someone before they passed away." "I regret not telling my best friend how much he meant to me, and before I knew it, it was too late because he killed himself.
“ ‘Besides, what happened to me is supposed to be funny. I never think about it’ ”
"I could be good-And I would-If I knew that I was understood-And it would be great-Just wait-Or is too little too late-One day this embarrassment will be behind me-And that day I could think of things that won't remind me-But these days-It's unbearable for both of us who can't discuss it this way-Getting strength trying to learn it my own way."
“I did one thing in that picture that I should never have done, to put in a flashback that was a lie”
"My mother was a drug addict. She did everything a person might do to get money for drugs. Often we didn't have food in the house; if there wasn't money for both, drugs came first. I ran away when I was sixteen, and never even finished high school. They figured that out in my third year of college, and made me take an equivalency test."
Good evening. Some of you out there may not realize this but those of you who attended Suntime Middle School have been with this guy for the last seven years. I would like to ask you all, not just Suntime Middle School grads and who all else, to join me in thanking Mr. Weather for his patience and dedication to the success of our education over the years. We are the Class of 2000. The first graduating class of the new millennium. The past four years have been pretty wild. We started out as a bunch of rats in a small cage, but as time went by we learned and matured and became big rats in a new small cage, but in any case, the cage door is now opening; the handlers turning us wild things loose. As we leave "Where the Wild Things Are," home to some of the best cat fights, fist fights and food fights this side of the Cascades, I have a little surprise for all of you sitting in front of me here tonight in your caps and gowns … we ain’t seen nothing yet!
as a tear ran down his face. "Yet I will never forget the family I so
"- But John says the very worst thing I can do is to think about my condition, and I confess it always makes me feel bad."
“Why bother trying? What’s the point? So I could go to some suck-ass college, get a diploma, march out into a job I hate”
"I do not promise to make you happy in this life but in the next."
It was this summer when 12 other people and I were going to the Florida Keys. We all spent the night at a hotel, the next morning everyone wanted to go swimming at the pool. I wanted to go too, but little did I know I would have to do something I knew I shouldn’t have.
“I suppose that I have never properly thanked you for saving my life. I am sorry for that. I was not sure then that I wished it saved.”
First of all, I'd like to welcome all the parents, relatives and friends, on behalf of the senior class. It has been a long, hard road to graduation and I know your presence here is greatly appreciated. My job as salutatorian is to reminisce on our past here at County High, a past that reads like a script of a soap opera.
College are the best years of life. These are the years when you have the best friends and you enjoy a lot. If you ask any college student, they are going to tell you some best incidents about college life. But they are also going to tell you about the regrets of college life. Most people do not take college life too seriously because they are unable to achieve what they actually think of. Following is the list of some most common regrets you can hear from college students (i.e Me!).
"'Never again.' That's what I said to myself. 'I never want to feel your kind of pain again.' Just when I think it's over, just when I think it's through... I find myself back in love with you."
To begin something new, you must sacrifice something old. To enter the real world, you must graduate your childhood.