Graduation Speech

Ah the sentimental times

Graduation Speech

This graduation marks an ending and a beginning in all of our lives. High school has helped us to prepare for this next phase in our life where we as independent individuals can continue to make a difference in this world. As Sir Winston Churchill once said, “This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is perhaps, the end of the beginning.” This is it, the jumping off point at which we move on to bigger and greater things. Though we are moving on, we must always remember, remember the people who helped us to get to where we are today, remember those who laughed and cried with us and especially those whom we loved. We have been prepared in our beginning years and now we’re ready to move on into our future.
I believe our teachers and leaders here at Heritage High School have prepared us well for this next phase in our lives. I would like to take this time to thank some very important people in my life and I am sure in your lives as well. Thank you Mr. Smith for working your classes so hard these past years; after your class college social science will be nothing to worry about. Something to know about Mr. Smith is that he really believes in getting his students involved in the world. One of his student’s frequent assignments was to write letters to our elected officials to make our voices heard. He made us realize that we too have a voice that can change the world. I would also like to thank Mrs. Pedrotti for helping my fellow classmates and I be better prepared for the future by teaching us to work hard. She is not one who holds back criticism and correction and I believe her criticism has helped us learn and better ourselves. I thank you Mrs. Alexander and Mrs. Trusdell for supporting us as students and providing us with an environment in which we could learn and interact with other students, you have made a great impression on us. All of us have had our lives touched by the faculty and staff. We have learned some of life’s greatest lessons here at Heritage. We have learned that we can and will always improve ourselves and our community. We learned that we as people and young adults can really difference in our world and now it’s our turn and our time to go out and actually make that difference. Thank you teachers and staff from all of us.
Congratulations class of 2008 we’ve made it.

Congratulations everyone, those of you who didn’t have to suffer through my graduation just got to experience the shortest part, my speech. Now, what would possess me, a person who despised high school and tried on numerous occasions to get out early, to write such a thing? Simple, they made me.
I like most people in my graduating class had the option of graduating early and I was ready to take it and go to college. However, those of you who attended my graduation know that I did not take that option. You see I was a TA in the library for two years and this being the case I was rather close to the librarians. Well, as I was filing books the librarian came up to me with a smile on her face and told me something that shouldn’t have been shocking but was anyway. I had the second highest GPA in the entire school. I didn’t think about this seeing as my main goal was to get into BYU, not speak at a graduation which didn’t matter to me anyway (thank you to those who came by the way). It did cross my mind that I would be the first person to speak at a high school graduation since dad but once again, I really didn’t care.
I feel like I should mention the effort I took in getting into BYU (I got accepted to all three…hmm, that wasn’t as satisfying as I thought it would be to say since I am in a room full of geniuses) but I have to have something to write next year. Anyway, come April I get called into the principals office and while I was trying to breath shallowly so as not to inhale the reek of cigarette smoke that was pouring off of my principal in intoxicating droves the guy everyone knew that was going to be valedictorian walked in. That was when it occurred to me. Even though I had senioritis to the extent where I just didn’t care if I got a B+ in my AP classes I must have still been in the running to speak at graduation. This is what my thought process was like. Wow, I go to a school of idiots…does this mean I have to pretend to like the people that have made my life miserable…does this mean that I have to care that they tried to make my life miserable…miserable is a funny word…is it bad if I sound stoned to my self…is it bad that I know how stoned people sound… and it went on. That was when my principal told us what a great honor we were receiving and how proud he was etc. Then we were given the packet. I read three pages on my way back to economics before I started to laugh. I was not allowed to mention college, trade schools, passing tests, specific teachers (a rule which I broke because I had a teacher who everyone hated which I absolutely loved, the collective cringe I heard from my fellow students was very amusing) etc.
Personally I was more concerned about passing the AP tests but the week before the test I realized that I had to turn my finalized speech in for review to make sure I didn’t say anything offensive. Three hours and some editing later I turned in the speech written above. I was proud that my laziness exhibited during my senior year didn’t affect my grades too badly and there were some people that I was going to miss but my speech was just filler. Honestly there were no words that could describe how happy I was to never have to see those people ever again.
Fast forward to graduation…my speech was short, the valedictorian’s speech was long and very self congratulatory but amusing (for the first few minutes anyway, don’t think I am being mean but the guy was really into himself…I should know, he asked me to keep mine short so he had more time to talk…we weren’t timed.) They didn’t let us practice with the echo so everyone either thought I had a speech impediment or was emotional and actually cared about the people who I was speaking to. Then it was time to go home. The best part of graduation was my family being there. I still have the flowers Amy gave me in one of those boxes in the attic. Anyway this story should have been way shorter and I am sorry to make whoever reads this to suffer through my speech which I gracefully summarized in the process of reading aloud. Long story short…the End.

Nice Try Darwin

Nice Try Darwin

It was a nice day out at the grandparents.  We were pruning the olive trees that line the drive way and using a sledge hammer to drive in the stakes to which the trees were to be tied.  I asked where Shadow was since my boys enjoy him being around even though they usually get knocked over and licked in the face multiple times with each encounter.  Grandma said he was in the kennel so I went to let him out and look for the mini sledge hammer (that I remembered being by the bees) since the big one was a bit awkward for me to use.  When I let shadow go he gave me his obligatory play bite that is pretty annoying and jumped up on my shirt and pants, which is very annoying, then ran off down to where Grandma and Grandpa were with Heidi and the boys.  As he ran away I noticed a pink cyst like lesion on his doggy parts.  I made a mental note that it would have to be taken care of, or at least looked at, and went off to the bees to get the mini sledge.  As I approached the bees I saw that the base had collapsed under the weight of the honey and the hives had fallen over.  The bees were still there so that was good.  Just one more thing to take care of at grandma’s house.  I couldn’t find the mini sledge but figured we had better get the bees upright sooner than later so I set off down the property to tell mom and dad the news and to check on Shadow’s strange pink nodule.  I first told Grandpa to stay calm and delivered the news about the bees, assured grandpa that it was easily remedied, and how we should probably suit up and take care of it.  My attention was drawn back to shadow as he again left dirty paw prints on my clothes and bit my hands hoping to play.  I responded by pushing him down to have a look at whatever it was that I had seen.  Any thought of helping the bees vanished as I stared at Shadow’s testicle protruding from his lacerated scrotum.  “Uh, Grandma… When was the last time you walked shadow?” I asked because not only did shadow have a gapping hole where no hole had business being but the wound margins had healed over like a pierced ear.  Grandma swore up and down that they had walked shadow the day before.  When pressed further she admitted that it was David that had walked him the day before, and the day before that, and she couldn’t really give me a straight answer as to when the last time she or Grandpa had walked Shadow.  No big deal really, David is great with Shadow and enjoys his company but I just wanted to get a handle on how many days old this wound could be.  By now Grandpa wasn’t too happy with the prospect of paying a vet more money to sew up this dog’s unit than he was worth.  I told Grandpa that before he went and got the shotgun (not really, Grandpa wasn’t really considering this… I think), that maybe we could take care of it.  Once I found out they still had a bunch of sutures left over from Grandpa’s practice we were in business.  I asked grandma to track them down while I got a flushing solution made up with some diluted Betadine in warm water.  I figured the best place to do this would be on the grass so we took the very excited to have so much attention, Shadow, outside to get fixed (pun intended).  The hard part came when it was time to restrain him.  This is where my Eagle Scout rank would come in handy if only I were an Eagle Scout.  Where is Joseph when you need him?  After many attempts to hog tie Shadow we settled for Grandpa and Uncle Dave holding him with much of their weight on him.  That was when Shadow stopped thinking the attention was so cool and started to squirm a bit.  Upon further inspection it was apparent that these wound margins were not going to heal with out some help and I was not about to cut Shadow to give him new healthy margins with out some local anesthetic.  So I gave him some injections around the area (also left over from grandpa’s practice), waited a few minutes, flushed all of the bits of dirt and rubble out and then proceeded to cut and sew.  What should have taken a minute tops took 45 due to his constant squirm (not due to pain but being pinned under two biggish guys), and to (all of you familiar with a dog’s anatomy realize) the body part in question is not firmly attached and moved like a piston in a car with Shadow’s rapid breathing.   So grandma kindly secured the appendage in question.  After the ordeal was over Shadow jumped up and once again gave me an annoying but playful bite and again jumped on me making me wonder why I had even bothered.  I told grandma to keep a close eye on him and to bring him to the Vet if he started acting funny in any way, overly drowsy, rapid breathing, vomiting, you name it.  I had to give Darwin credit though, on many occasions I’ve thought that this dog has no business swimming in the gene pool, and it turns out Darwin agreed.  Now with that out of the way, Heidi, the boys and I could enjoy a nice relaxing day at the Grandparents house.  Oh yea, the bees…

I am happy to report that after about two weeks you could no longer see any remnants of the hole except a small bald spot.

Forever Bored

Forever Bored

Am I to be forever bored? I try to remember what I use to do with my free time. Then it came to me, I use to study study and study. Now that I have the supposedly wonderful freedom of an adult I don't know what to do with myself. I need some hobbies, and I need them fast. Life can't stay this boring.

Jail?

Lately I have not wanted to do much. I don't want to get out of bed in the mornings, I don't want to contribute to society by working, and I don't want to be responsible for my life. This said, I think i've come up with a solution. Jail. I may not know that much about it, but we'll just entertain my fancies and say its how I think it is. It would be free, I'd get fed, cable, have free time, get to work out, and oh, did I mention it would be free? Now, I'm sure there were would be draw backs, scary inmates, community service, but hey. I'll just pretend jail is going to be for me how it was for George Bluth... How could I not love it? Now, the only problem is how to get into jail...

Insight into my laziness

I've started going to the gym lately, and no, I don't like it. As I was driving around the parking lot searching for a close space, I thought to myself, "Meghan, you are about to go run 3 miles, you think you could handle walking a little ways into the gym." No, this would be asking too much, I must find a close parking space, and I did, it was glorious.

Ice cream, friend or foe?

For the first time in my life I live in a neighborhood. There are trees, children, and yes, ice cream trucks that haunt our quiet street. I hear them frequently, too frequently, playing there sinister music outside my window. They wake me up from naps, they sit outside for minutes on end, just playing and playing, beckoning me. Go away, its October, I don't want your ice cream.

Reliving life

Its strange how little things bring you back. Like smelling the same soap my mom has bought since high school, or listening to the same radio stations I did when I was 16. I feel as though I'm reliving some parts of my life.

Fog

I don't know how it happened. But it did. I forgot about fog. I grew up with it, I remember running in it as a child, chasing faeries and elves that sadly I never caught up with. I remember times when it was so thick you couldn't see your outstretched fingertips. It is a magical thing fog. The real fog that rolls in from the ocean, from the bay. I love it, and it may just be beautiful enough to relinquish the hold snow has over me.

Bike riding

I had an eighth birthday and it was my first bike I ever got.  I just wanted to ride it, like all day long for some reason or other or maybe for some good reason or other, I couldn’t ride my bike and I don’t remember which reason and on my birthday I got all emotional and freaked out about my bike because I feel like I couldn’t ride it anytime I want and I can’t remember much about it, or the reason but when I settled down I had fun riding my bike.  I used to ride my bike to watch them build houses right over our fence from Marble Drive and I had fun riding my bike.  There were times when I used to fall off my bike and get hurt.  I got emotional in such a way that I didn’t feel like riding home with my bike.  And I used to walk home and leave my bike at the new houses because I fell off my bike and got hurt.  It would have been more wise if I’d come home with my bike even though I fell off of my bike even though I didn’t feel like coming home with it.  And you used to take me to look for my bike.  Like I said I could have come home with my bike, walk home with it at least instead of you going to all that trouble to help me look for my bike.  And finally you got tired of me giving you the trouble about helping me with my bike and leaving it there that you decided that you were going to give my first bike to Joseph.  And finally, Joseph got his own bike for his birthday.  When we were at camp I used to ride my bike camping at Yosemite.  Way way back in the 70’s.  A year later, you got me a new bike on my 9 birthday.  And once you got me a new bike, you gave the first bike you got me to Joseph.  And on the 13th of July, I rode my bike without telling you where I was going so I got grounded from it for a time or so.  I used to ride along Davison drive when I was 9 which is too young to ride my bike there unless there is an adult with me to watch or someone you can trust to watch.  And then in 1982 through 1984 I used to ride my bike on dirt bumps and then I had lots of fun riding my bike on dirt bumps.  And then there was a time when I was running down and fell and hit my head and got hurt bad like back in 1982 or 83.  This time I don’t think I left my bike there like I used to and was wise to come back with it instead of you having to come down with me to find it.  And I once a few times I rode my bike to the fair grounds from Marble Drive to watch my brothers play baseball and I had lots of fun there and when I rode my bike home I got home like 3 minutes before you and dad got home in the van.  Three minutes at the very max before you got home.  And then I got a mountain bike for Christmas and I rode my bike and told you where I was going so you won’t have to worry in the end of 1996 and I ride my bike to Church unless it rains now these days.  And when I rains, I ride in the car with you so I don’t ruin my suit.  And that’s my story.

Conness

Conness

11:30 PM (Camping at Saddlebag in the Summer of  2007): Joshua is sick with a fever and can’t get to sleep.

1:00 AM: Joshua’s crying…I feel around for the pacifier then feel around for Joshua’s mouth…then silence but for the soft metronomic sucking of a pacifier.

1:30 AM: Sarah’s turn.

3:30 AM: I extinguish the beeping of my watch alarm and go out into the darkness of the moonless morning. The headlamp was illuminating white clouds of breath making it almost easier to feel my way around than to try to look through it. I kissed Sarah and snuck quietly out of the tent. Being mostly packed I collected the last few items that the sleepless night reminded me that I’d forgotten.

4:00 AM: Guiltily I walked away from camp leaving pregnant Sarah and the three little ones behind as we begin our climb. Joshua’s cry pierced the quiet as we walked down the hill toward the dam. We crossed and left the trail that circumvented the lake to start the arduous shale assent. The world painted itself gray in our rings of lamp light and fell again into darkness as it tumbled and shattered down the mountain behind us.


Sunrise: I wiped sweat from my forehead and began to shiver as pink spilled over from the east. With each step my energy slipped and skidded away behind me and came to a quiet rest in a cloud of dust.

Flashback to 1988 (my first time climbing Conness): As I packed some trail food into a backpack early one morning I received a reminder that I was not to climb Conness. Conness is a deadly looking mountain of jagged peeks and ominous cliffs near Tioga pass. I’m sure I’d mentioned something about wanting to climb it, and it was obvious that if any mountain was to be my destination that day Conness was it. To my fourteen year old self it was the only mountain around worth climbing, I wasn’t climbing for the exercise but for adventure. Anyway I was armed with semantic justification that one could not really call a mountain “climbed” unless he stood on the summit. It would be easy enough not to do that, so I started toward the glacier crusted peek of Conness. I remember the solitude that I felt on that hike. I was alone for as far as I could see in any direction. I wondered if it was possible that no one had ever set foot where I was walking. Though logically it didn’t seem likely it sure felt possible being up there. I’d brought a little Gideon New Testament with me and read as I walked. Shortly, or so it seemed, I found myself within easy reach of the summit. I turned around and started back for camp. I arrived late that afternoon and began to organize an expedition for the next day. Returning alive from the near summit was probably the most persuasive of my arguments that convinced Dad and a few others to join me. On the way up we stumbled upon an old wrecked plane in the bottom of a crystal clear glacial lake from which we filled our canteens. The last leg to the summit took us up a narrow path with thousand foot cliffs on either side. It’s always looked to me like we were walking up an elephants trunk towards it’s head. We sat there on the peak for a long time. The clear and beautiful view of white granite mountains, little blue lakes, and scatterings of trees fell away in the distance with the curve of the earth.

6:00 AM: The cold air pressed painfully against my throbbing head. I laid down on the rocky ground to rest or die. There on the ground the gray of the wilderness focused into a beautiful rainbow of tiny plants and flowers. The freezing burn in my throat subsided as my breath slowed down. I stood, the flora blurring back into grayness, swallowed some aspirin and numbly set off toward the summit.

8:00 AM: How old was I now? I never keep track and was having a hard time doing the math…thirty something. I was hiking with my little brother Michael and couldn’t admit that I just wanted to give up and turn around. The “I can’t make it” was on the tip of my tongue but just wouldn’t spill out. I kept on hiking, knowing that every miserable step towards the top would mean an increasing miserable step on the way down. I told my self it was the lack of sleep or even wondered if I was sick. But that little voice in my head would reply “No, you’re just being a wimp”, so I kept on moving.

10:00 AM: I wanted to enjoy the beauty of the morning above the tree line, the sound of wind and water flowing across the rocks. I wanted to, but it was so much to just keep moving while trying to act like I wasn’t a complete wimp. We climbed up over the last ridge and were blasted with a bitter cold wind. I couldn’t stop shivering. We paused for a few pictures and climbed to the summit, signed the log book, ate some lunch, and started for camp.

  
The Decent: On the way down I found a strangely human looking bone, put it in my pocket and some time later noticed it was gone. We told Sarah and Heidi to expect us back at camp by 3:00. We slipped and slid off of the shale and onto the last leg of trail around 2:55 (I was at least able to take some pride in my timing) but that slight hill up to our campsite now loomed larger than the mountain itself. We’d be late because of me. I stepped onto the road, dreading the climb, then out of nowhere Sarah and the car came around the corner.  In my mind, lacking the actual energy, I ran up gave Sarah a big hug and a kiss as I spun her around. She’d come to save me. Thank you Sara! We waved them down and with difficulty I pulled myself up into the passengers seat.

Not Going Home: We let the kids splash around a little in a stream near Tioga pass. Then headed off to soak in some hot springs on the way home. It didn’t help, but the kids had fun. I told Sarah I wouldn’t be able to help drive that night as planned so we got a Motel room, which was also a blast for the kids. Perhaps the best part of my day, or what made it better, was when we checked my temperature and it was 104º.   103º latter in the motel.  Thank goodness for an excuse.

~Aaron 2008