First of all, I'd like to say that I'm truly honored to be here speaking and sharing my thoughts to all of you. I'd like to acknowledge the hard works of everyone. To my fellow graduates, my family, the teachers, and the faculty members, congratulations to us.
After graduating junior high school, all I have felt was anxiety, because I'm moving into a new school and it is a big step for me, new school means new people. And to be honest, I'm scared of meeting new people. I'm the definition of socially awkward. My mind was literally going everywhere. I was thinking all the worst situations that might happen to me. "Will my new classmates think I'm annoying?" "Will they be mean to me?" "Are they going to ignore me?" and I was really hoping not. And thank goodness you're not like that. It turns out that you guys are actually funny and kind. You know how to have a good time. Although there were still some boundaries between some of us but that's okay.
Being a senior high school student was probably the most stressful I've ever been but today I'm glad the we've all managed to survive the endless performance tasks, quizzes, assignments and exams together. We all have managed to graduate in this stressful yet fun school year because of the friendships we all had made. I would actually want to thank LIoyd for uniting all of us in the first place. If I'm not mistaken, he's the first person who reached out to us, who made our group chat so that we all can connect to each other and we're really grateful for that. I also want to mention Mak, Florae, Diana and Darrel for being the stress reliever of this section. They're the ones who always make us laugh in the weirdest way and we want to thank you for that. This section really means a lot to me and I'm happy to be a part of this. To my fellow schoolmates, being the Valedictorian will never be the barometer to measure one's literacy and ability, we are all intelligent and we all did very well!
I would like to extend this achievement to all of our wonderful parents, for their tireless dedication, love, support and most importantly for having patience. After all, we're not the easiest person to handle. We get tired, irritated and frustrated because of the pressure we put ourselves into. We can't help but sometimes have a tantrum at home because there's just a lot going on at school yet still they are always there supporting us in everything.
I would also like to show my deepest gratitude to all of our teachers in making our high-school full of wisdom, morality and integrity. Thank you for helping us to be competitive in order for us to complete this chapter. I have nothing but respect and gratefulness to all of our mentors for acquiring the complete excellent skill in their fields to educate us effectively. I express to you, teachers, my whole-hearted admiration for always inspiring us that we could do better, for motivating us to improve our school works and responsibilities.
Before I end this speech, let me tell you first a story that happened in a certain seminar for graduating students. There's this public speaker who asked for a volunteer but she did not give any specific order or information of what's going to happen. She just simply asked for a volunteer. At first nobody really did anything, nobody got up and volunteered, so she asked the students again, "Can I have a volunteer?" and finally someone stood up and approached the speaker. Guess what she did? She gave this student a 500 peso bill and a bar of chocolates. The speaker then told this guy to sit again. After that, almost everyone was raising their hands wanting to come up on stage to have money and chocolates but unfortunately, they're too late. There's only a room for one person. The students who didn't participate on that opportunity were the ones, who are too scared, too shy, too lazy and sometimes too ignorant. We shouldn't be like that. We should take risks like that one student who volunteered. Opportunities rarely present itself and when it comes to your way you should just take the risk, go for it and do your best. Every challenge is a chance for success!
I am really blessed and fortunate to be surrounded with people who believe in my dreams, the reason behind my success. LCBA, classmates, teachers, friends, and especially to my family, thank you very much.
Again, congratulations class of 2016.
