guingel | graduation, aka the horrors of public speaking

Wow. I've graduated. Now I can finally say "now that we've graduated". For the past few weeks it's been "now that we've. . . finished high school." I like precision. But now with quotation marks and punctuation, if you notice. Where does the period go? Inside the quotes, I think. Oh well. This is actually not so much an oversight of the high school's--I mean, they never taught it, but I remember getting my beloved English teacher last year to go over all this stuff with us.

In any case. I probably should say something profound? But I don't feel profound. lol. All I've been thinking about all day is giving my speech. Sooo nervous. I've never spoken in public before, and this was probably about a thousand people. So I've been tense since forever. I've distracted myself by thinking about this week's Buffy and Angel. It's the series finale today (or rather, UPN is airing the series finale today) of Buffy, and Angel is "Dead End", which is the sexy Lindsey episode. So it's a big week! And I'm nervous about the recording, because The first episode of Buffy season 4 was on last night, and the tape totally spazzed out. :( Ah well.

Anyway. XD As you can see, I've been trying not to think about things. But I was told that I read the speech very well! Which is something of a miracle. People can't understand when I speak to them, I usually speak very fast. So when I was practicing the speech, I was focusing on enunciating, and also on going extremely slowly. And I was worried when I sat down, because when I actually gave the speech I wasn't thinking about going slowly. But I think that when I'm speaking, I automatically get at least a little clearer, because I haven't had too many problems at Bethpage. So people said I did well. And my speech was lovely and short. Or at least, short.

The valedictorian's speech was lovely, period. It also wasn't that long. But it was just really nice. All about being a good person, as opposed to being about success and ambition. Really nice. I actually listened! I'm horrible at paying attention during speeches.

Also--to quote Buffy during "Prom", because everything comes back to Buffy, "And I got a toy surprise!" The principal gave me, Johnny (valedictorian), and the two class presidents who were MCing and were also up on the platform thing little stuffed graduating bears. :D They're so cute! And me and Johnny also got pens from the board of education. They're nice, but not as nice as the toy surprise. :)

They also lost all of our diplomas! wooo! I mean, all four of us. Not everyone's. Because they gave out the diplomas by row, and we weren't in the rows. (I mean, ok. They give you the diploma holder when your name is called and all that. But then afterwards you go into the school and get the actual diploma--so there's no name confusion) And no one could find our diplomas. In the end they were on the principal's chair. But we were already the last ones to leave the field and then it took a while to find them. 15 minutes? I don't know.

The graduation is held on the football field, and we had a gorgeous day. It wasn't too hot because it was nice and breezy. Although the wind did cause some problems. It made weird noises in the mic (I found this worrying XD). And caused severe issues with the caps. There's a word for them, but I can't remember it and definitely can't spell it! It was so nice, though--one of the class presidents bobby pinned my hat on, right before the processional. She's one of the popular people, and we're not friends, but she is very sweet--we took dance class together in 2-4 grades. XD Also, the tassels caused severe problems. It kept blowing into my mouth during my speech, so finally I flipped it back. Never let it be said that I'm not decisive!

ok. I think I'm going to go outside and be with family. Sadly, not a lot of family was able to come. It's ok. I don't mind--it's very boring and my speech was not interesting or personal. But I felt a little like, "oh." when the valedictorian had 30 family members. XD His family is just like that, though. So it's cool. But they're sitting outside now, as I said, and getting another lawn chair seems like so much work. . .

I think I'm going to try and avoid public speaking in the future.

Work tomorrow!