VANESSA ROSALES WELCOME- English

Transcription

1 VANESSA ROSALES WELCOME- English Friends, teachers, administrators, and parents, welcome. We are graduating! Can you believe it? Four years ago, most of us walked into these halls as excited as we are today. Now, those same four years later, we re leaving the school behind to a whole new crowd of people, most of whom are the ones that grew by our side. We are going forward into a new world and leaving behind peers, teachers, and old ways. It was a long 12 years of discipline, effort, and certainly lack of sleep. It was a time of growth and learning about this new chapter we are now commencing. As some of us will continue with our studies, and others will have other plans, we are moving on to a new chapter of excitement and changes. So, without further adieu, it is my honorable pleasure to introduce the Class of 2015! VANESSA ROSALES WELCOME- Spanish Amigos, maestros, administradores y padres de familia, bienvenidos. Nos Estamos graduando! Pueden creerlo? Hace cuatro años, la mayoría de nosotros caminamos en estos pasillos tan entusiasmados como lo estamos hoy. Ahora, esos mismos cuatro años más tarde, vamos dejando la escuela detrás hacia una nueva multitud de personas, la mayoría de los cuales son los que crecieron a nuestro lado. Vamos hacia adelante en un mundo nuevo, dejando atrás compañeros, maestros y viejas costumbres. Fueron 12 largos años de disciplina, esfuerzo, y sin duda falta de sueño. Fue una época de crecimiento y aprendizaje sobre este nuevo capítulo que ahora estamos comenzando. Algunos de nosotros continuaremos con nuestros estudios, y otros tendrán otros planes, nos estamos moviendo a un nuevo capítulo de emoción y cambios. Así que, sin más demora, es mi honorable placer de presentar la Clase del 2015! Jaclyn Walter- AFS INTRO Hello, my name is Jaclyn Walter, and I have the honor of introducing our foreign exchange students with whom we ve shared our year. DDHS participates in the AFS program each year, and welcomes students from across the globe to join in on our comet pride. This year thanks to the Hembrook family, the Woodman family, the Stiles family, and the Brandt family who served as host parents, we were able to welcome Sara Skarstein and Hedda Rod from Norway, Gianmarco Broilo from Italy, Malthe Storm from Denmark, and Julius Kursatz from Germany. These students joined soccer, basketball, golf, tennis, and swimming; in turn slowly we watched as they turned into comets. With them we earned long lasting friendships as Homecoming, Winterweek, Prom and the winning of our state soccer game came and passed. DDHS and I, would like to thank them for the memories they will share with us for the rest of their lives and wish them safe future travels. Finally, it is my pleasure to introduce Julius Kursatz from Germany who has some moments from his time and experiences at DDHS he would like to share. 1

2 Julius Kursatz- AFS STUDENT A wise man said once An exchange year is not a year in a life: it s a life in a year. As a Student enrolled for a year at DDHS, I can say it was more than just an exchange year. From the first day, I felt welcomed and right at this school. DDHS is a close knit community. We stayed together in every hardship. The students and faculty helped each other through every situation. My dream was always to go to an American High School and play American sports. I got to do this this year and enjoyed every moment of it and will come back to Delavan every moment I can. The whole year I had something to do and was always busy. It wasn t always like I expected it. Before I came here I had an image of America through movies like 21 Jump Streets and High School Musical. I thought through the movies all Americans drive big Pick UPs, carry guns and eat Fast Food. Right when I came to the U.S.A. I realized that it wasn t true. Just one stereotype that I had in my head was true, you Americans are welcoming and friendly. Yes, maybe it is not like High School Musical, or like those movies where the quarterback dates the cheerleader captain. But I also have to clarify a few things: No, Gianmarco, our Italian, friend doesn't sit around and eat pasta every day; Malthe from Denmark isn't on a boat to go fishing every day; some of you thought our Norwegian guests Hedda and Sara ride reindeers on fjords; and I don t always wear lederhosen or eat Sauerkraut. Actually, I hate sauerkraut, but I do have pair of Lederhosen. It has been a really short year for me at DDHS, but here we are, ready to take a next step in our life. Being an exchange student is not always easy. It was hard to find friends. It was hard to get adjust to a new house and family. Communication in English was difficult at the beginning of the school year. Also, learning in a classroom were the primary language is English gave me headaches. Being in foreign country during holidays, like birthdays and Christmas, made it even more difficult to be away from my friends and family. On top of all of these difficulties I have to figure out a new system of weights and measures. Can I wear shorts on a 35º Fahrenheit day? Why is 5,280 feet a mile? How did I go from 80 kilograms to 175 pounds? When will you guys adopt the metrics system? Because I was welcomed into the Delavan- Darien community the difficult transition period came to an end very quickly. I made new friends really fast, so I was the whole year busy and had fun stuff to do. Already on the second day I was invited on the boat of Grovers and met so many new friends. One of the main reasons to go to America were the High School Sports. That helped me the whole year to make new friends and memories. At school the faculty and friends showed me at the beginning of the year were my next classroom is and helped me with my work. That made my life a lot easier at school. I grew from all of those experiences and learned more about myself. I learned easy things like how to do my laundry and cook new meals. One skill that made my exchange year so special is confidence. That s why I am standing here right now. I will miss my awesome friends, the best town and my perfect family. I will miss all those helped me to stand right at this place of my life right now. I feel blessed. A year has passed one and now it's my last day at DDHS. In a couple weeks, we will go back to the places we came from. We will give hugs and fighting tears we will say goodbye to the people from here and go return to the people we hugged and fought the tears to say goodbye to before we left. We realized that things that seemed important before don t really matter as much now. We will leave our best friends to return to our best friends. We will save our memories and put them away for now, but when we return to this world the memories will be fresh and new again. And somehow we will find our places between those two worlds. 2

3 Madison Stronach- Class Gift Good evening graduates, guests, friends, and family. My name is Madison Stronach and on behalf of the senior class it is my pleasure to present the class gift. At the beginning of the year Dr. Schmitt gave us a pep talk about creating our legacy as a class and as individuals. The senior class gift is a way for generations to come to look back upon our school year and the lasting influence and legacy we have made. As you walk into the high school your eyes are filled with the site of posters for fundraisers, pictures of students, artwork that students have used their talents to create, and white hallways with splashes of Royal Blue and Yellow until you come up to the Associate Principals office. When you walk by that office you will see a mural, painted by a few of the graduating members in the shape of a comet. At the bottom left corner is our class motto, which says, No matter how dark your world may seem, there are stars. But if those stars burn out, don t forget that there are still comets. Author Unknown. Our class gift is a chance for us to make a lasting gift of our four years at DDHS, as well as the people recognized, in our handprints, that left their legacy for us to see. ADAM DREFS A LOOK PAST We ve been here 4 years. It has been 1374 days from our first day of high school on September 6, 2011, to now, our good bye on June 11, Look how far we ve come. We can t say we re the same people we started high school as, and it s not just because of puberty. Along the way, we ve changed in various ways. We ve brought with us our own unique insights into classes, a preview of all the different people we ll meet in our lives after Delavan- Darien. Outside of school, extracurricular activities have gathered us to bond over things in common, be it theater, football, volleyball, videography. These bonds you ve made have hopefully given you people you can call on. These teams have taught you to work together to accomplish goals, to be the very best you all can be. Furthermore, you ve made connections with not only your peers, but also those you look up to. Teachers, coaches, directors, all have taught you their own life experiences and have hopefully inspired in you a passion for learning and living. They and your parents have helped you grow and will continue to do so. Along the way, people have come and gone in our lives who have left lasting impressions, like Doc Schmitt and Ms. Schuknecht. The lessons they taught will also stick with you. While school lessons might not apply, like what cell membranes are made of or that blue curtains symbolize depression. However, they ve also taught you to treat others as you d have them treat you, to be respectful, even in disagreement, or that snacks make everybody happy, especially ice cream, or cake, or both! Your teachers, your fellow students, and your experiences have all given you a group of things to call on. I hope you ve appreciated those that meant most to you, because you re going to need them. The Earth is 7 billion people wide, and you ve only gotten a small taste of the diversity on this planet. Your bosses and managers won t always be as kind and forgiving as your teachers here have been. So what are you going to do in this world of work and toil? You could live and wait and sit around hoping that things can get better. But, this is hardly a way to live. You have to seize the day, Carpe Diem. The phrase goes You Only Live Once, but you shouldn t. You should live every day of your life. Every day, you should enjoy your life to the fullest. Do that which you enjoy, not what you can settle for. And in seizing the day, you cannot just be you. Shakespeare s To be or not to be, is one question, but a better question is To be or to improve? I urge you to improve. A wise man once said, Anything can be improved, and it was, is, and always will be true. You ve seen improvement in your years here. When we began as freshmen we were squirrels, always refocusing our attention on every new detail. Then we became wise 3

4 fools, sophomores. We learned a few tricks of this trade of high school life, but we were by no means masters. As juniors we became vice presidents, waiting until our turn to take over and be the leaders, learning the rules and red tape all along the way. Now we re seniors, leaders facing retirement. We have all the power and rights to decision making, but we ve also been anticipating this minute, when we re leaving, and must pass the baton to the next crew. As you leave, I encourage you to look back on all the lessons and people you have experienced, the good and the bad. If something impacted you enough that they are worth remembering, they are not lost and neither should you be. The poet Oscar Wilde said Experience is merely the name men gave to their mistakes. In Lion King, the baboon, Rafiki, said The past can hurt. But the way I see it, you can either run from it, or learn from it! It is part of being human to err. The greatest error is not learning from your failures. There are joyous occasions and people to love everywhere. Encourage peace through gentility among all people. Show kindness to those you meet. Always strive for goodness or better. Be and show gratefulness to anybody or anything that is a gift to you. And when the urge comes to be lazy, to slack off, or do anything less than your best, exercise your self- control if not for the sake of others, then for your own. Now please, go out and remember all those people who you used to be, from the squirrel to the retiree, as you continue to improve, to grow, and make your own lives fantastic! Thank you. AARON WOJCIECHOWSKI A LOOK AHEAD Thank you, Adam, for that speech. Welcome friends and family. Abraham Lincoln once said that, The best way to predict the future is to create it. Over the course of high school we have grown as a class. We have endured hardship but also made ground- breaking achievements. I have never known a class that is as unified and strong as our own. and although we may scatter into various parts of the world after high school, we will always be a family. I am proud to call myself a Comet! We are not Comets just because we attended Delavan- Darien. We are Comets because we are: Engaged in school and the community, we are thought- provoking, and we are culturally diverse and accepting. We exemplify all the characteristics that our school stands for, and I cannot wait to see the future we create. Over these 4 years at Delavan- Darien I personally have been able to witness and experience our student body's compassion and acceptance. Whether that be: Befriending new foreign exchange students, or simply accepting other peers for who they really are, our class has no limit to its benevolence. Looking towards the future, the class of 2015 is one of diversity, integrity and leadership. We are leaving high school as young adults who will shape the world into a better place. We are a generation that is experiencing and creating social change, and we will take what we have learned from our parents, teachers, community and peers and continue to create a better future for generations to come. I believe that when Abraham Lincoln said, The best way to predict the future is to create it is that in order for us the achieve our goals and future, we must simply work and learn to create an everlasting future that we desire to live in. So I challenge you all to take command and create the future you want to see. Much has happened in the past, but the future is now, and it s time to show the world what we can do! Congratulations Class of 2015! 4

5 LETICIA RIZO- CLOSING SPEECH ENGLISH Delavan- Darien High School to me and many others has been a home for the past 4 years. This is where I became who I am. This is where I met all my friends, who have become like my family. Today is the last day we will all be united as a class. These last 4 years, we as a class have gone through so much. We have fought through losses, and came together to strive above it all. We have put on the same t- shirts to cheer the loudest at an assembly, and we have together accomplished probably the greatest tp- ing of all time. All that we did together. We stayed united for 4 years. Tonight, we will be leaving that behind. Each one of us will be moving on to make an impact somewhere else in this world, but we will all carry these memories with us. So please, Class of 2015, rise. We will now leave these moments to be memories by turning our tassels from the right to the left. Congratulations class of SPANISH Delavan- Darien High School ha sido para mí y muchos otros como un hogar durante los últimos 4 años. Aquí es donde me hice a quien soy. Aquí es donde conocí a todos mis amigos, los que han sido como mi familia. Hoy es el último día que todos vamos a estar unidos como una clase. Estos últimos 4 años, hemos pasado por mucho. Hemos luchado por pérdidas, y nos unieron para esforzarnos por encima de todo. Nos hemos puesto las mismas camisetas para gritar el más fuerte en una asamblea, y juntos hemos probablemente hecho el mejor tp trabajo de todo el tiempo. Todo lo que hicimos juntos. Estuvimos unidos por 4 años. Esta noche, vamos a dejar todo eso atrás. Cada uno de nosotros vamos a hacer un impacto en otro lugar en este mundo, pero llevaremos todos estos recuerdos con nosotros. Así que por favor, clase de 2015, levantasen. Ahora vamos a dejar estos momentos para ser recuerdos girando nuestras borlas de la derecha a la izquierda. Felicidades clase de