2014 East Greenwich High School Valedictorian, Heather Shen's Graduation Speech

http://openclipart.org/image/300px/svg_to_png/7936/BenBois_Graduation.png

2014 East Greenwich High School Valedictorian, Heather Shen's Graduation Speech

Good afternoon East Greenwich High School teachers and administrators, proud parents, friends, and–of course–the graduating Class of 2014!

I’d like to begin by stating the obvious — we could not be here today without the overwhelming support of our community.  To the teachers, thank you for sharing your passions and your love of learning.  Thank you to our families, and most of all, to our parents for putting up with our antics and getting us to where we are today.  Mom and Dad, thank you for your unconditional support.  Dad, congratulations on surviving not one, but two teenage daughters.  I will always be grateful for your advice and support in my decisions.  Mom, you are my rock.  You are the best cheerleader, chauffeur, coat-holder, and advisor I could have ever asked for.  Ivy, you are more than my sister; you are a role model to ask when I have a question, a best friend to share a laugh with, and a person I aspire to be one day.  Most importantly, thank you Class of 2014 for making these last four years ones that I will always remember.

I am so proud to be a part of East Greenwich’s Class of 2014.  You are some of the most talented, intelligent, and compassionate people I know.  We have authors, athletes, innovators, and entrepreneurs, and I have no doubt that you all will be extremely successful.  Carolyn, when you become  president make sure to stop by!  Brett and Andrew, don’t forget about us when you’re a dynamic duo in the NFL.  Anthony, when you speak fifty different languages, maybe you can help translate this speech for my grandma.  Hi Popo!  Caela, you can bet that I’ll be the first one in line at your book signings. There are no bounds to our success in the future, and whether leaving it all on the field, volunteering on a mission trip, or getting excited about learning something new, you all continually astound and inspire me.

Starting from freshman year, this school always had something to teach me, both inside and outside of the classroom.  I would like to share with all of you a few of the lessons I’ve learned from from being part of the East Greenwich High School Class of 2014:

Lesson one: Pick up your feet.

I learned this the summer of my freshman year.  Over the summer, I had decided to try out for the girls’ tennis team at the high school.  I had only heard horror stories of Mr. Brocato making us run 20 suicides in a row and frankly I was terrified of throwing up on his nice golf shoes.  Tryouts came, my fear was for naught, and by the end of the first day, I was laughing with my friends, skipping through the ladder drills Brock laid out for us.  By the end of the second day, Mr. Brocato caught on to my laziness with the footwork drills and he called me over.  He said, “Heather, that is probably the worst footwork I’ve ever seen.  Pick up your feet.”  Embarrassed and blushing, I went back to the ladder, and you should’ve seen my feet fly.  Over the next four years, our team never skipped the footwork drills again. I guess the ladder drills paid off, because this year, we won the Division I State Championship.

So here’s what I learned from this: We may live in an age of instant messaging, instant gratification, and Instagram, but there is no short cut to success. It takes hard work, tenacity and patience.

Lesson two: Learn as many chemistry puns as possible; they’re great for awkward silences.

So a neutron walks into a bar, and orders a drink.  The bartender says to him, “For you, no charge.”

I came across this lesson during junior year in AP Chemistry with Ms. Schnacky.  I’m sure that anyone who has ever taken that class will tell you that it is simultaneously one of the most difficult but most fun classes East Greenwich has to offer.  Between learning about electron behavior during oxidation-reduction reactions or the difference between an alkane, alkene, and alkyne, my class laughed and joked, read poems about cats and talked about Iron Man.  

I learned from this class two things: the first was the lesson about chemistry puns, and the second about stress and keeping everything in perspective.  When life gets stressful–as it undoubtedly will–force yourself to smile.  Learn to laugh at corny, silly, nerdy things.  Be as incredibly or maybe even as delusionally positive as possible. In the end, I remember and value most the jokes and stories from that class, not just the chemical equations I learned to balance.

It can be a very cynical, stressful place out there in the “real world” and that stress can eat at your energy and your potential. And to fight it, you should smile with every atom in your body.  You should smile first thing in the morning.  Smile with your eyes, your face, your heart, at every living and non-living thing that you see.

Lesson three: #Shenning it.

I joined EGHS Orchestra this year, and something that Mr. Carniaux coined was the phrase, “Shenning it.”  Apparently it means either rushing in an orchestra piece or being awesome; I’m pretty sure that it means the latter.  Whenever I would increase the tempo by too much, Mr. Carniaux would just say #Shenning It until I slowed down.  And while I still don’t completely understand the phrase, I’m beginning to understand that fast and furious is not always the best.

Instead, take a moment.  Pause.  Pausing allows you to take a beat, to take a breath in your life. As everybody else is rushing around us like lunatics, I dare you to do the opposite.

Pause and take the time to find out what’s important to you. Find out what you love, what’s real and true to you — so it can infuse and inform your work and make it your own. Pause and check in with yourself and spend a moment there.  Pause and think of what you want before you go gallivanting off to find it.

When you are busy running through your life–Dare I say “Shenning it?””–you’ll: one, miss out on my fabulous speech, and two, miss out on your favorite moments.  You would miss out on the funny faces Chase Buckley and Becky Scheff make during orchestra class.  You would miss out on singing loudly and badly with Sarah Baker–although most people probably would prefer that.  You would miss out on Courtney Kalk’s great bear hugs, and you would miss out on the sprouting daffodils on Avenger Drive.

I am by no means advocating that you should go through life slowly and aimlessly.  I think it’s great to make goals and think about your future.  Just don’t live there  Go for what you want now because nothing really ever happens in the future.  Whatever happens, happens now, so live your life where the action is.

Last one.  Lesson four.  This was taken from the poem, “If” by Kipling; maybe you’ll remember it from Freshman English: “If you can fill the unforgiving minute with sixty seconds’ worth of distance run, yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it”

East Greenwich Class of 2014, the rate and way the world advances is dependent on us.  They are depending on us for our efforts and our vision.  They are depending on our eyes and imagination to identify what wrongs exist and persist and our hands and our backs to right them.

I have no doubt that our class can make this world better. But to do so, we must be fearless in pursuing what we know is right, bold in speaking for what we believe in, and unafraid in making mistakes.

No one is insisting you all become global politicians or selfless activists. But you can still “fill the unforgiving minute with sixty seconds’ worth of distance run.”  Spend at least some significant time in the service of all. Of all of us. Of seeing the world clearly and taking part, in some way large or small, in making it better.

You are all probably dying for me to wrap this up, so here’s a summary of my speech in Twitter-form, 140 characters or less: work hard, keep everything in perspective, don’t rush, and live fulfilled #aspire. As we prepare to take our first steps into the “real world,” I know that East Greenwich has prepared us all to step into the world fiercely and fearlessly.

Congratulations East Greenwich High School’s Class of 2014.  We did it!