Graduation speech yay! I am sitting in a box. However, this is not your everyday “rectangular prism” or even a “motionless cube of cardboard, locked in a stream of consciousness.” No. Rather, this box is acting as a priceless metaphor. Priceless because I found it in my basement and, well, didn’t buy it. But a metaphor nonetheless. And it’s an important one. This box is a symbol of Our World. It’s what, up to this point, we’ve made of ourselves. It’s the checklist of everything we’ve done and everything we have yet to do. It’s our surroundings. Our environment. Our bed when we sleep, our car when we drive down the highway. Essentially, it’s a giant glass bubble that sits over our heads so we don’t suffer from oxygen deprivation. What I’m telling you today is that it’s time to stop acting like an astronaut. Every single person in this room has been living with an infinite number of boxes cased over their bodies. In fact, we’ve labeled them. Elementary school. Middle school. High school. In reality, you can label your boxes however you’d like. My mom labels hers with black permanent marker. I don’t label mine, and for this reason, I serve as a poor example. But our surroundings are each a sort of box, nonetheless. There are days when we’re nestled all cozy inside. There are days when we’re content with viewing only certain pieces of the world at a time. But for the most part, we have grown tired of it all. Our boxes have become too small for our bodies. Too cramped. There is little space to grow, and our hands have become too packed against cardboard walls to hold a pen to paper. This is, perhaps, a good explanation for the inevitable Senior Slide, which, according to some, begins sophomore year, thus causing us to lose all focus, to look solely toward the future, and to stop doing significant amounts of homework. It has also caused a good percentage of us to play far too much Frisbee. In fact, you may have even heard a couple of us scream. More than once. But things are different today. Today is Graduation Day for the Class of 2004 at Oyster River High School. Today is the day when this box, closed for so long, flies open, and we are exposed to the craze around us. Today is the day when the lights of our caves flicker on at once and we delve into the world of chaos and confusion and excitement and life- something that we’ve always had, life, but never noticed. Until now. Until we get up and take on every curveball the world has to pitch us. Until we jump into every ocean that we come across. Until we run circles around every star in the galaxy. That day is today. For twelve years, our boxes have done a lot for us. They have taught us manners. How to read. How to write cursive, multiply, play an instrument and speak a foreign language. This box, here, has shown us how to calculate the Gross Domestic Product of the United States. It’s given us tutorials on classics such as To Kill A Mockingbird. It has informed us of the nonviolent protests of Gandhi and of the Aboriginal culture in Australia, the means of calculating the volume of a cement truss. It has given us every piece of information it could in the time we have, and its success has been solely dependent on our acceptance of it. But it’s time to get rid of it and stand up on our own two feet. It’s time to thank it graciously and run away. Say goodbye to the box, children. Say it. Say “Goodbye box.” (GOODBYE BOX) Now laugh. Laugh crazily. Do it. (HAHAHAHAHAHAHA) (Stop laughing. Look into each and every one of them very slowly. Be totally serious. Take the box, pick it up and leave the tent. Throw it as far as I can out into the field then return to the podium.) Good evening, ladies and gentleman. My name is Elizabeth Ann Santos, and I am the President of the Graduating Class of 2004 at Oyster River High School. Oyster River is a good little school, but it is currently lying over on the field. It will be there until the end of the night should you care to go and visit it. While our school endures massive amounts of construction, today is a day focused on the total opposite: destruction. Destruction of our outer shell so that we may grab new experiences in the ear, absorb them, savor them, devour them. Today is the first of many days when we will finally discover what we are truly made of- and it’s more than asbestos and hidden fun in the ranch dressing, though that may be difficult to… digest. We are made of Nick Miale singing an ode to Mr. Hawley at senior follies. We are made of Emily Nelson’s tendency to wear orange trucker hats and lime green skirts- at the same time. We are made of Em Kelly’s rendition of “Moondance,” Brandon Lonstein’s beatboxing. Dina Tsukrov’s crêpe thefts from the French 5 room. Nick Tarvainen’s political paintings. Fan clubs featuring Zach Moss. Even the senior boys’ moves to the Milkshake song in black spandex have become a part of us. We are made of coffee talks with Mrs. Barnaby. Obsessions with Mr. Stoykovich. Indian stick dances during gym and trips to Canobie Lake Park for physics. Faculty talent shows featuring Mr. Lafferty in a mismatched suit and bowtie. Hallways where we were squeezed just a bit too close. Art Days and Diversity Days and PI days with the math department. We are the Senior Class of Oyster River High School and we know what we’re made of. We feel it everyday. But now, it is time to take all that has helped mold us, hold it tight, and then destroy it. It is time to laugh violently as we steal the lessons that we have learned, keep them and use them for the rest of our lives. It is time to rid ourselves of the boxes that hold us and to grow bigger than we have ever imagined. It is time, girls and boys, ready or not, spandex or no spandex, to show the world who REALLY has the best milkshake. I could teach you, but I’d have to charge.