Yesterday, I went to a dinner party at Sichuan Gardens in Waltham for my cousin George who just graduated from Northeastern and now is at the police academy training to become one of Watertown MA’s finest. (Side note: over half the men in my family are named George, I am not joking) It was a good meal and even Watertown Town Council president Clyde Younger went to the proceedings. After I got home, I started thinking about the excruciating long time it is taking me to get my degree at Umass because I am only taking one or two classes a semester and about my graduation from Bay State College 3 years ago. After looking at some of my old stuff I realized it was the 3 year anniversary of graduating from Bay State and giving the Valedictory address.

            I am sure many a snooty Ivy-league graduate would say being named valedictorian of a 2 year community college is akin to being named tallest midget or the best team in the N.L. West. Furthermore, I freely admit myself that I probably should have got into a better college if it were not for the spite I held against the Watertown Public School system that rivaled the bitterness that Pedro Martinez directs to Tommy Lasorda who said he could never be a quality starting pitcher at his size. It all started in first and second grade when I was put into something called the Chapter One program. I am still not sure what the program was exactly all about, but I know I was taken out of the classroom at random occasions and put into a different room with a group of kids who even at the age of six everyone could already deduce were the stupid children. In the other classroom they tried to teach us using different teaching methods mostly involving language and grammar. Till this day I think this crappy experimental program is one of the reasons that I have as much chance at winning a spelling be as Mary Kate Olson has winning the Coney Island Hot Dog Eating Contest. Well this is what began my grudge (the ability to endlessly hold a grudge has been passed on to nearly all Greeks from Achilles) against the Watertown Schools. Starting in second grade through my senior year I had a lower ratio of completing homework assignments then Alex Rodriguez has getting hits when it matters. Needless to say, because of this my grades were never stellar. So I ended up going to Bay State.

            This is not meant to disparage Bay State College. It comes through on its mission of providing real life training in a certain field via internships and the like and helping its graduates find jobs. My first two jobs I got after graduating at a Head Start in Jamaica Plain and as an assistant kindergarten teacher in Boston were procured with connections I made at Bay State.

            Now Let’s get back to the Story. A week before the graduation I was told I was Valedictorian and had to give a speech at commencement. My first thought was cool, now maybe I could convince my mom I was not a complete screw up. Then I realized I did not know what the hell to write about. At first I wanted to give a very unique speech with constant random reference to everyone from Phil Plantier to Nas. I then realized those type of jokes would mostly likely be met with confused silence so I decided I would just include some mainstream reference jokes that are not too hard to figure out like Jay Leno does 5 nights a week making 35 million a year in the process.

            Still, I really did not know what angle I wanted to go with the speech. So I read through past Bay State Valedictorian speeches, the 2001 Watertown High valedictorian speech, other speeches I could find online, the lyrics to that fake commencement speech “Sunscreen Song” and Chris Rock’s parody of it “No Sex In The Champaign Room”. After I thinking about it some more, I realized there was only one possible theme to write about; the fact that 9/11 occurred the first week of my college life and the subsequent goings on after that.

            Surprisingly I whipped up my speech in only a few hours after that and was pretty happy with it. Then a mini controversy occurred between professors, deans, and the President of Bay State if I should be allowed to say the word shit in my speech. (The line was “teachers who made us feel like shit”) The professors who I had for classes like Professors Small and Del Luca were on my side and the most deans were against the letting me say shit. Then I  asked my friend Dejia if I should change the line or stick with it and stubbornly piss people off and she gave a look that said “Teddy you are one crazy white boy” I decide I would avoid the needless controversy and just change it to “teachers who made us feel terrible.”

            Eventually, the day of commencement came, I gave my speech and it went over well with the crowd. I even almost completely avoided talking too fast or slurring my words which I am prone to do whenever I am nervous or have drank one to many Pepsi cans. One Final note: one day I am going to make one of those crazy presidential runs like Ross Perot or Ralph Nader and the press is going to look for dirt on me. Well I will give you some. I committed borderline plagiarism in 2 parts of my speech. I stole a whole line from the Cameron Crowe’s movie Almost Famous and paraphrased a line from the valedictorian address Caitlin Van Ness gave at the 2001 WHS graduation. In addition, looking back the speech has some grammatical problems and at times it does not flow from paragraph to paragraph very well. All that being said, here is my 2003 Bay State College valedictorian Speech:

Good Morning,

Members of the Board of Directors

President, Howard Horton, Vice-President, Marilyn Gardner , Honorable Judge Roderick L. Ireland, Associate Vice President Sylvia Reifler, Deans, William Carroll, Patricia Nugent and Leonard Long, faculty, parents, family, friends, my fellow graduates

            It is a privilege to stand before you at this seminal moment in our lives to look back at our experiences at Bay State College. The problem I had when I began writing this speech was all of us have had diverse experiences in our lives and have different plans for the future so I was not sure what to talk about. Furthermore two years is not exactly a large amount of time to reflect upon. Then again, a lot can happen in two years.

            Just look at Jennifer Lopez. In the past two years she has gotten married, divorced, and engaged around four or five times. Two years ago Drew Bledsoe was the quarterback of the New England Patriots and Tom Brady was an unknown back-up player. Since then Tom Brady has replaced Drew Bledsoe as the Patriots starting quarterback and led them to their first Super Bowl in franchise history. The Bruins and Celtics have made it to the playoffs twice and the Red Sox… well, may be we should not talk about the Red Sox.

            Unfortunately the last two years have not been filled only with entertaining and comical matters. For many of my fellow graduates and me our first week at Bay State was marred by the worst day in American history. On September 11 2001, Terrorists hijacked four planes and used them as weapons to murder nearly 3000 innocent people.

            The fall-out from those attacks shaped events in our own back yard and events around the globe. I can still vividly remember walking out of class the day after the attacks to my bus stop to see the commotion of a police raid on the Copley hotel in search of people involved in the terrorist attacks. Events around the world have been no less chaotic. The United States has been engaged in military actions in both Iraqi and Afghanistan.

            During this time many people have talked about what it means to be a patriotic American. Is it more American to support the war or to use your first amendment rights to protest it? Are you more of an American if you are a Democrat or a Republican? Does being born in this country make you more of an American then being here on a student visa?

            If you look at the history of the United States, being an American has nothing to do with your views on a subject, your political party, if you were born here, or your ethnic background.

            Two values define America at its foundation. The preamble to the constitution states “ We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our prosperity, do ordain and establish the constitution of the United States of America.” What jumps out to me about that passage is that our country is built upon the desire to form a more perfect union.  One of the ideals that have defined America and its people throughout history and today is wanting to make life better.

            The Second principle America is built on is its original motto E Pluribus Unum that in Latin means “out of many, one.” More than anything else, we are in a country based on the idea that people from all over the world can come together to make a better place.

            America has never been a perfect place and never will be, but over the years people have worked hard to correct its many faults in order to get ever closer to the ideal of people all having an equal opportunity to improve their lives. As we slowly get closer to equality opportunity, the focus on improvement of quality of life has moved away from a national scale and to a more personal one.

            During my time at Bay State College, I have met an amazing group of people who all come from different backgrounds. As I look at the crowd of my fellow graduates I see people of all races and cultures, who speak many different languages, each with his or her own unique personal and family history. But with all these differences, there is something that unites us here today. We all came to Bay State College to try and improve our lives. We came to gain knowledge and a better perspective of our world. We came to attain understanding and experience in our chosen field of study. I am proud to say that my fellow graduates and I have succeeded in fulfilling the American Dream of different people coming together in order to improve their lives.

            However, our journey is not yet over; indeed it has only just begun. As I look at my fellow graduates today I see physical therapists who will help the injured get healthy again, I see the managers and entrepreneurs who will run hotels and retail shops and management companies, I see future lawyers who will help fight the battle for justice in our court rooms, I see the fashion designers and merchandisers who will help people like me, with no fashion sense, to dress in style, I see teachers who will shape the minds of the future.

            As we all get closer to reaching our goal, we must not forget all the people who helped us get there. Along the way our family members have worked as hard as humanly possible in order to put food on the table and give us a place to live. I’d like to take this time to thank my mother Tina, my sister Kathy, and my brother George in Greek for everything they have done for me to help me reach this point. (Talk in Greek)  We have friends who will always been there for us. We have had great professors who have challenged us and helped us reach our potential.

            Unfortunately, the opposite is also true. We all have had people in our lives that have made the voyage to this point hard: Family members who were not there for us, People who have harassed us, teachers who we had who made us feel terrible. When you come across people who make your life difficult don’t let them bother you. Just keep focused on your goals and you will pass them by on their way to mediocrity.

            As you walk on stage to get your diploma today, you will be succeeding in the American Dream of improving your lives. But the American goal established by our founding fathers of creating a more perfect union is never complete. That is why whether you decide to continue your education, get a job down the street, or go work half way around the world, you must never stop trying to improve yourself or the world around you-because that is what being an American is all about.

            Thank you, Good Luck, and Go Red sox.