Mock Valedictorian Speech
...after many grueling years of work. I do not want to be known as your “valedictorian” as I stand here. There is no time left to place labels on people anymore, instead I ask that you accept me as one of your peers and as a man who will enjoy becoming a graduate alongside you. For the moment, please do not dwell on the past or even look into the future. There’s time for that later. Instead, I ask that you give up a few minutes of your lives to sit back, and enjoy the final step of your high school career. Feel the tingle on your eyes; it is trying to tell you something so pay attention to it. Look, do you see it? That’s anxiety, a thick and pulsating anxiety that is flowing through the air right now from person to person. It is multiplied at this moment only because we all have the same questions: Do I have time to go to the restroom? When will this kid stop talking, so that we can graduate already? Who is this guy sitting next to me? I’ve never seen him before in my life. The anxiety will not die. Grab hold of the anxiety in your mind as a visual aspect of today and remember it. Let the twitch in your ear awaken your emotions. It’s the sound of a bittersweet day. It is a day in which you say goodbye to the people with whom you have spent the last four years with, and hello to the rest of your life. Capture this as an audio aspect of today, and remember it. Allow the tips of your fingers to feel the number of people gathered with us in this auditorium and next to you. Explore the wondrous faces and touch the smiles on each of them. ________ is not, and never was, about the brick building you walked inside every day, but these people;...