Duty or Pleasure?

[Spea­k­er sings]

Don’t know much about history

Don’t know much biology

Don’t know much about a sci­ence book

Don’t know much about the French I took

Dear stu­dents, dear tea­chers, dear parents,

The­se are the first lines of Sam Cook’s song „Won­derful World“. And for some of us tho­se lines tur­ned into rea­li­ty when we, 120 stu­dents all tog­e­ther, ente­red Lin­coln High school about six years ago. We’­ve all expe­ri­en­ced exhaus­ting, dis­ap­poin­ting and cum­ber­so­me moments. The­re were moments, when things see­med to be over­whel­ming. Argu­ments with tea­chers, quar­rels with fri­ends and class­ma­tes, poor results … all this shaped our days from Mon­day to Fri­day and made school an unp­lea­sant duty.

But if the­re had been only such moments, we would­n’t be here today; we would­n’t cele­bra­te the achie­ve­ments of 120 stu­dents, we would­n’t be hap­py that all of us will lea­ve this room as gra­dua­tes tonight. We can look back at a won­derful time and rea­li­ze that „the good things come with the bad ones“ and that school often was also a pleasure.

When peo­p­le, who have alre­a­dy left high school, told me that their time at school had been a superb expe­ri­ence and that they missed it, I could­n’t belie­ve it. But now I see their point and I know that I will soon miss a lot of things: our school trips and pro­jects, working tog­e­ther and mee­ting my fri­ends every day. At least most of MY les­sons were fun and the say­ing „we learn for life“ often appli­ed to me. I think we grew up and tur­ned into more matu­re per­so­na­li­ties. Now it’s up to us what we do with our lives. We are now at an important stage of life. We would­n’t have come so far wit­hout help and sup­port. So it is high time to thank all our tea­chers for their dedi­ca­ti­on, pati­ence, open­ness and their effort to turn our time tog­e­ther into a pleasure.

Dear fel­low stu­dents, I wish ever­yo­ne the best for the future, suc­cess in accom­pli­shing his or her aims. Let us look into the future with con­fi­dence, with self-esteem and trust in all what we do. We have come so far, let’s go fur­ther! We should take to heart that „the one who fights can lose but the one who gives up, has alre­a­dy lost“.

I’m loo­king for­ward to mee­ting all of you at the class reuni­on and wish ever­y­bo­dy a nice evening! All the best – class of 2008!