I hate being over-prepared. Three weeks ago the Senior Class selected me to be the faculty speaker at this years graduation, which is in about 1 1/2 hours. No sweat. I’ve done it before, and so I got to work on my speech. Something mildly pithy, not too boring, that lasts less than 5 minutes. Got it written in a day. But ever since then, I’ve been fiddling with it. 2 hours before I go on, and I just rewrote a section. Mind you, I think I’m making it better and tighter with each revision, but if I don’t get this sucker delivered soon, I’m going to want to throw it out and write a new one on the fly!
So here I sit in my room, waiting for my cue to join the class and march out into the stadium. I’m waiting up here because the Gym isn’t air-conditioned and it’s 98 degrees outside.
If it makes you feel any better, when my principal spoke at my high school graduation there was nearly a riot. He made a comment about our football team not being as great as they could be (they had just won the state AAAAA championship and the whole county was really rallied behind them), and the team started booing. Then he said that we were a horribly rude bunch of students, and the whole student body started booing. Then he said that our parents must have been total failures at teaching us any sort of manners, so the parents started booing. Then he said something along the lines of “way to prove my point, that’s a marvelous example you’re all setting for your graduates,” and things started to fly onto the field. There were a few arrests.
Er, I mean, good luck. It’ll be fine! You’ll do great! Relax!
Nyah, screw it, have beer and relax. No one will be listening to you anyway. Focus on something interesting (like Vegas Dopefest '08, perhaps?), spit out the bits you have memorized even if it doesn’t make sense, shut up, sit down.
No one hates speeches more than than the audience, except perhaps the speaker.
Please forgive my lack of a link to Vonnegut’s “Address to the graduating class of Bennington College, 1970.” It has long been my favorite speech. I wish you all the best.
All kidding aside, that was one of the best grad speeches I’ve heard, and with 8 stepkids, Irish ancestry, and a zillion fertile friends, I’ve listened to a lot of graduations.
Dude, that totally rocked! I’m glad you stopped revising it when you did. You didn’t paint a rosy picture of the future but in a nonoffensive and entertaining way. It was way better than the speech at my graduation. Then again, so would a root canal: the local bishop ranted at us about nuclear proliferation and abortion for almost an hour!
