poem gco

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Ample years of tremendous challenges and trials,

Each day seems to be the greatest deadly rival.

As the long and difficult journey comes to an end,

Another chapter of the story begins to make a trend.

A flash of dazzling light passed into my memory,

Can’t even imagine how time passed by rapidly.

The earsplitting tic-tock of the clock is vanishing,

Vanishing slowly as my mind is reminiscing.

Startling memories that could never be forgotten,

Hard laughter, genuine smiles, forever will remain then.

Loneliness, selfishness and disappointments indeed,

Those things created the entire college life complete.

Sleepless and tiring nights due to tons of school works,

Zombie eyes and sleepy heads during class hours corked.

Those exams that makes the cerebrum suffers a lot,

Passed or failed, the serendipity is what you got.

The people around who makes it more interesting,

Professors who planted the seed of wisdom and learning.

They serve as the catalyst to what we’ve become now,

Showing gratitude is sparse; it’s true and a big vow.

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Those important people that would remain in our hearts,

True friends that could never ever be broken apart.

They’re always there in times of happiness and great need,

They will never leave you; they’re the best people indeed.

When the dazzling, shiny light fades away on my mind,

The long journey’s still on process, its nowhere to find.

As the long story is progressing up to its end,

A new road of journey is now opening ahead.

Friends will be friends in a deep trenched abyss,

For friends will come out through times of demise.

Friends will be friends like there’s no tomorrow,

For friends will come out with the love you bestow.

Friends will be friends when you’re momentarily apart,

For friends will climb the highest mountain just to see your heart.

Friends will be friends in spite of rigid predicaments,

For friends will sit beside you and decipher the key up to the end.

Friends will be friends yesterday, today and tomorrow,

For friends will never leave you, friendship still grow.

Friends will be friends, now and forever,

For friends will always be there, so happy together.

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Various personalities that jive together,

Strange origin, didn’t know how it gets better.

As the time goes by, it gets tighter and stronger,

I didn’t imagine that this thing would last longer.

I remember those times when I was still alone,

I didn’t know someone, I just stared on my phone.

As I entered into the class, nobody seems to care,

As if I didn’t exist, just a cold and invisible air.

Days passed by, but still, I’m a loner,

I just stayed on the black, dark corner.

But then you arrive, you save me from hell,

You give me light, give direction to my tale.

I felt so much happiness when you accompanied me,

It’s been the start of a fruitful friendship—it’s meant to be.

Not just one, and two, and three, to the infinity,

Countless, kind and true friends comes to my life luckily.

They brighten my days and make me feel insane,

They’re one of the reasons why I had so much to gain.

I thank God from above for having them in my life today,

I treasured them for life, forever and always they will stay.

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INSPIRATIONAL QUOTES

The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched—they must be felt with

the heart.

Helen Keller

Try not to become a man of success but a man of value.

Albert Einstein

If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put

foundations under them.

Henry David Thoreau

Inspiration and genius--one and the same.

Victor Hugo

To find what you seek in the road of life,

the best proverb of all is that which says:

"Leave no stone unturned."

Edward Bulwer Lytton

If you would create something,

you must be something.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Every artist was first an amateur.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

The more difficulties one has to encounter, within and without, the more significant and the higher in

inspiration his life will be.

Horace Bushnell

Life has no smooth road for any of us; and in the bracing atmosphere of a high aim the very roughness

stimulates the climber to steadier steps, till the legend, over steep ways to the stars, fulfills itself.

W. C. Doane

Experience is the child of thought, and thought is the child of action.

Benjamin Disraeli

Don't wait for extraordinary opportunities. Seize common occasions and make them great.

Orison Swett Marden

http://www.inspirational-quotes.info/adversity.html

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Do we not all agree to call rapid thought and noble impulse by the name of inspiration?

George Eliot

No great man ever complains of want of opportunities.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Men do less than they ought,

unless they do all they can.

Thomas Carlyle

Let thy words be few.

Ecclesiastes 5:2 from Words of Wisdom

Happy are those who dream dreams and are ready to pay the price to make them come true.

Leon J. Suenes

The power of imagination makes us infinite.

John Muir

First say to yourself what you would be;

and then do what you have to do.

Epictetus

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act but a habit.

Aristotle

Take calculated risks.

That is quite different from being rash.

George S. Patton

Storms make oaks take roots.

Proverb

If you do not hope, you will not find what is beyond your hopes.

St. Clement of Alexandra

We are all inventors, each sailing out on a voyage of discovery, guided each by a private chart, of which

there is no duplicate. The world is all gates, all opportunities.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Seek the lofty by reading, hearing and seeing great work at some moment every day.

Thornton Wilder

The only way of finding the limits of the possible is by going beyond them into the impossible.

Arthur C. Clarke

http://www.alwaysbesideme.com/wisdom.html


http://www.inspirational-quotes.info/dreams.html

http://www.inspirational-quotes.info/imagination.html

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Without inspiration the best powers of the mind remain dormant. There is a fuel in us which needs to be

ignited with sparks.

Johann Gottfried Von Herder

And all may do what has by man been done.

Edward Young

Hope is like the sun, which, as we journey toward it, casts the shadow of our burden behind us.

Samuel Smiles

Work spares us from three evils: boredom, vice, and need.

Voltaire

If the wind will not serve,

take to the oars.

Destitutus ventis, remos adhibe

Latin Proverb

Men's best successes come after their disappointments.

Henry Ward Beecher

You cannot plough a field by

turning it over in your mind.

Author Unknown

The best way out is always through.

Robert Frost

Do not wait to strike till the iron is hot; but make it hot by striking.

William B. Sprague

Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections must first be overcome.

Samuel Johnson

Fortune favors the brave.

Publius Terence

When the best things are not possible, the best may be made of those that are. - Richard Hooker

He who hesitates is lost.

Proverb

If you want to succeed in the world must make your own opportunities as you go on. The man who

waits for some seventh wave to toss him on dry land will find that the seventh wave is a long time a

coming. You can commit no greater folly than to sit by the roadside until some one comes along and

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invites you to ride with him to wealth or influence.

John B. Gough

Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.

Albert Einstein

Believe with all of your heart that you will do what you were made to do.

Orison Swett Marden

Knowing is not enough; we must apply.

Willing is not enough; we must do.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

We are still masters of our fate.

We are still captains of our souls.

Winston Churchill

Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Reach perfection.

Baltasar Gracián

For hope is but the dream

of those that wake.

Matthew Prior

Constant dripping hollows out a stone.

Lucretius

Nothing contributes so much to tranquilize the mind as a steady purpose--

a point on which the soul may fix its intellectual eye.

Mary Shelley

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"Today, at our graduation rites, I brought a Transcript of Record. The student who owns such transcript

studied at the De La Salle University (a school that has an 'Ivy League' status here in the Philippines). If

you happen to be an undergraduate in this university, and your ID number starts at "94" and up, and if

you happen to fail 15 units (credits) in one school year, you will be kicked out by the school."

"The transcript that I'm holding has 27 units (credits - Ed.) that are marked "failed". 12 were incurred by

the student in just one school year. One subject holds three units. If you think about it, the student who

owns this transcript I'm holding should be kicked out by failing one subject.

"This speech was not made just to acknowledge the efforts of our parents to keep us in school

(financially). I did not make this speech as a political statement, or convince you to not go abroad and

work here instead to help our country (from the "Brain Drain" situation - Ed.) . This speech was made for

the students deemed "normal", who are just like the owner of this transcript that I am holding, because it

has always been that the universities do not necessarily care about the achievements of a "normal"

student. There are awards given to students such as "Summa Cum Laude", "Best Thesis Award" and

"Leadership Award". But I am not aware of universities awarding students with a "Hang-on and

managed to graduate despite nearly getting kicked-out during his academic stay" award just for being

"normal"."

"Yes, you got it right. That is one good reason."

"If a student has a failing mark in school, especially in college, the student feels discouraged. The student

would then be too lazy to study harder, and might ask himself questions like "What type of jobs should I

think I'd be getting? A call center or a clerical job (Call center and clerical jobs are perceived to be

mediocre - Ed.)? Why am I so stupid? If I were intelligent, I'd probably land a gig at Proctor and Gamble

or to any prestigious company.""

"The road of a student who failed is very rough. Even if you'd say that it is entirely his fault why he failed,

you wouldn't really know how it feels to fail at something. It is easy to say "You can do it. Just study

harder", but do we even know what we're saying?"

"If a student is failing at his subjects in his university, you'd often find him laughing about it. Or, if not, he

would even pride himself that he took his subject for the nth time, or joke about already earning a

doctorate degree in AnMath3/Calculus/etc. because of the number of times he's acquainted with the

class and the course. But a Summa Cum Laude doesn't know what a "normal" student thinks when the

latter goes to sleep and realizes every time that when he wakes up the next day, he has to find himself

enrolling in the same course subject he failed in the succeeding school term."

"A "Star" student never experiences the fear of saying that "Mom, I failed." A "Star" student never

dreads the question "What if I'd end up working for an unheard company?" Because "Star" students are

http://www.dlsu.edu.ph/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain_drain

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain_drain

http://www.dlsu.edu.ph/

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so sure of their future, their paths are almost laid out or planned out for them."

"Let's not kid ourselves. Grades are everything. Even if you turn the world upside-down, companies will

never be fair about choosing fresh graduates to work for them. Sometimes, it ends up with the decision

that the student has connections, but it all boils down to your transcript grades. If you're not

academically good, you are going nowhere. If not, you'd go through the eye of a needle just to get to

that coveted job position."

"The speech I am giving at this graduation day is for the students who failed, who almost got kicked out,

or who have tried it all just to graduate and finish school. I have leveled the playing field for you just for

today. Whatever they say, whether they say it's your fault why you have failing marks or you were

almost kicked out because of your grades, I salute you because you have decided to not stop finishing

school. I salute you that you have the guts to still face the world even if you know the world wouldn't

be fair to you. I salute you that even if your transcript isn't that attractive, you have held your heads high

today and you feel equally proud about yourselves."

"What then would happen to the graduates after graduation day? I don't want to go thinking what

would happen to those "Cum Laudes". So over it. We all know that they will go places. But how about

the "normal students? Those who have 2, 3, and nth many failing marks on their transcripts?

Maybe they'd get to have mediocre jobs. Some might be lucky, they might work in a good company.

There are a lot of things that could happen. Don't lose hope. If you struggled to earn your college

degree, why stop struggling at life now?"

"Think about it this way: Go back to school. Show them that if you strive hard enough, you'd go places.

Try to prove them that if you do try, you'd be able to reach where they are now. You'd be able to prove

that you are not stupid, you're just lazy."

"You might think I'm joking. But I'm not."

"I've been on both sides. I have experienced failing a class subject, and I was almost kicked out from

school. I have experienced taking one course subject four times. I experienced getting scolded by my

parents, siblings, and the many professors who seem to don't care about how the students feel when

they are being reprimanded. I have experienced many sleepless nights thinking how would I actually tell

my parents that I failed a subject. I know what you're feeling."

"The transcript that is in my hands, is MINE ."

"What did I do when I graduated from college as a "normal" student"? I worked a little, then went back

to school. I took up a Master's degree not because it is an employment requirement or for whatever

reasons. I went back to school because I wanted to prove to myself that at the time that I failed, I was

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simply lazy."

"This is a rebellion. I raise my middle finger to every professor, over-achiever, naysayer and detractor

THAT TOLD ME THAT I CAN'T MAKE IT. I raise my middle finger to every valedictory or graduation

speech that only gratifies the university, those who were achievers in school or those who gratify the

country when it’s supposed to be the graduate’s moment of glory. You are supposed to acknowledge

EVERYONE. Even those who failed many times."

"This speech is for the students who do not have nice grades. If I was able to make it, you can make it

too. It's impossible that you can't."

Transcript of Commencement Speech at Stanford given by Steve Jobs

SlashDot ^ | 6/14/2005 | Steve Jobs

Posted on Wed Jun 15 2005 07:18:09 GMT+0800 (China Standard Time) by Swordmaker

Thank you. I'm honored to be with you today for your commencement from one of the finest

universities in the world. Truth be told, I never graduated from college and this is the closest I've ever

gotten to a college graduation.

Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories. The first story

is about connecting the dots.

I dropped out of Reed College after the first six months but then stayed around as a drop-in for another

eighteen months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out? It started before I was born. My

biological mother was a young, unwed graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption.She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to

be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife, except that when I popped out, they decided at the last

minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle

of the night asking, "We've got an unexpected baby boy. Do you want him?" They said, "Of course." My

biological mother found out later that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father

had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a

few months later when my parents promised that I would go to college.

This was the start in my life. And seventeen years later, I did go to college, but I naïvely chose a college

that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent

on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to dowith my life, and no idea of how college was going to help me figure it out, and here I was, spending all

the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all

work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back, it was one of the best decisions I ever

made. The minute I dropped out, I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me and

begin dropping in on the ones that looked far more interesting.

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It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms. I returned

Coke bottles for the five-cent deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the seven miles across town

every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of

what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me

give you one example.

Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout

the campus every poster, every label on every drawer was beautifully hand-calligraphed. Because I had

dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn

how to do this. I learned about serif and sans-serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space

between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful,

historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.

None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later when we were

designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me, and we designed it all into the Mac. It

was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in

college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts, and since

Windows just copied the Mac, it's likely that no personal computer would have them.

If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on that calligraphy class and personals

computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do.

Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college, but it was very,

very clear looking backwards 10 years later. Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward. You can

only connect them looking backwards, so you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your

future. You have to trust in something--your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever--because believing that

the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart, even when it

leads you off the well-worn path, and that will make all the difference.

My second story is about love and loss. I was lucky. I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I

started Apple in my parents' garage when I was twenty. We worked hard and in ten years, Apple had

grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4,000 employees. We'd

just released our finest creation, the Macintosh, a year earlier, and I'd just turned thirty, and then I got

fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew, we hired someone who I

thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so, things went well.

But then our visions of the future began to diverge, and eventually we had a falling out. When we did,

our board of directors sided with him, and so at thirty, I was out, and very publicly out. What had been

the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating. I really didn't know what to do for a

few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down, that I had dropped the

baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for

screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure and I even thought about running away from the Valley.

But something slowly began to dawn on me. I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not

changed that one bit. I'd been rejected but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.

I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have

ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a

beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods in my

life. During the next five years I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar and fell

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in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the world's first

computer-animated feature film, "Toy Story," and is now the most successful animation studio in the

world.

In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT and I returned to Apple and the technology we

developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance, and Lorene and I have a wonderful

family together.

I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful-tasting

medicine but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life's going to hit you in the head with a brick.

Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've

got to find what you love, and that is as true for work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a

large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work, and

the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking, and don't

settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it, and like any great relationship it

just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking. Don't settle.

My third story is about death. When I was 17 I read a quote that went something like "If you live eachday as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and

since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself, "If today

were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the

answer has been "no" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something. Remembering

that I'll be dead soon is the most important thing I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices

in life, because almost everything--all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or

failure--these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important.

Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have

something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

About a year ago, I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning and it clearly showeda tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost

certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six

months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctors' code for

"prepare to die." It means to try and tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next ten years

to tell them, in just a few months. It means to make sure that everything is buttoned up so that it will be

as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.

I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy where they stuck an endoscope down

my throat, through my stomach into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells

from the tumor. I was sedated but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells

under a microscope, the doctor started crying, because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic

cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and, thankfully, I am fine now.

This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope it's the closest I get for a few more decades.

Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful

but purely intellectual concept. No one wants to die, even people who want to go to Heaven don't want

to die to get there, and yet, death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is

as it should be, because death is very likely the single best invention of life. It's life's change agent; it

clears out the old to make way for the new. right now, the new is you. But someday, not too long from

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now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it's quite true.

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma, which is

living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your

own inner voice, heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become.

Everything else is secondary.

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalogue, which was one

of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stuart Brand not far from here in

Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late Sixties, before personal

computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and Polaroid cameras. it

was sort of like Google in paperback form thirty-five years before Google came along. I was idealistic,

overflowing with neat tools and great notions. Stuart and his team put out several issues of the The

Whole Earth Catalogue, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-

Seventies and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early

morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous.

Beneath were the words, "Stay hungry, stay foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off.

"Stay hungry, stay foolish." And I have always wished that for myself, and now, as you graduate to begin

anew, I wish that for you. Stay hungry, stay foolish.

Thank you all, very much.

Text as delivered follows.

Copyright of JK Rowling, June 2008

President Faust, members of the Harvard Corporation and the Board of Overseers, members of the

faculty, proud parents, and, above all, graduates.

The first thing I would like to say is ‘thank you.’ Not only has Harvard given me an extraordinary honour,

but the weeks of fear and nausea I have endured at the thought of giving this commencement address

have made me lose weight. A win-win situation! Now all I have to do is take deep breaths, squint at the

red banners and convince myself that I am at the world’s largest Gryffindor reunion.

Delivering a commencement address is a great responsibility; or so I thought until I cast my mind back to

my own graduation. The commencement speaker that day was the distinguished British philosopher

Baroness Mary Warnock. Reflecting on her speech has helped me enormously in writing this one,

because it turns out that I can’t remember a single word she said. This liberating discovery enables me

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to proceed without any fear that I might inadvertently influence you to abandon promising careers in

business, the law or politics for the giddy delights of becoming a gay wizard.

You see? If all you remember in years to come is the ‘gay wizard’ joke, I’ve come out ahead of Baroness

Mary Warnock. Achievable goals: the first step to self improvement.

Actually, I have wracked my mind and heart for what I ought to say to you today. I have asked myself

what I wish I had known at my own graduation, and what important lessons I have learned in the 21

years that have expired between that day and this.

I have come up with two answers. On this wonderful day when we are gathered together to celebrate

your academic success, I have decided to talk to you about the benefits of failure. And as you stand on

the threshold of what is sometimes called ‘real life’, I want to extol the crucial importance of

imagination.

These may seem quixotic or paradoxical choices, but please bear with me.

Looking back at the 21-year-old that I was at graduation, is a slightly uncomfortable experience for the

42-year-old that she has become. Half my lifetime ago, I was striking an uneasy balance between the

ambition I had for myself, and what those closest to me expected of me.

I was convinced that the only thing I wanted to do, ever, was to write novels. However, my parents, both

of whom came from impoverished backgrounds and neither of whom had been to college, took the view

that my overactive imagination was an amusing personal quirk that would never pay a mortgage, or

secure a pension. I know that the irony strikes with the force of a cartoon anvil, now.

So they hoped that I would take a vocational degree; I wanted to study English Literature. A compromise

was reached that in retrospect satisfied nobody, and I went up to study Modern Languages. Hardly had

my parents’ car rounded the corner at the end of the road than I ditched German and scuttled off down

the Classics corridor.

I cannot remember telling my parents that I was studying Classics; they might well have found out for

the first time on graduation day. Of all the subjects on this planet, I think they would have been hard put

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to name one less useful than Greek mythology when it came to securing the keys to an executive

bathroom.

I would like to make it clear, in parenthesis, that I do not blame my parents for their point of view. There

is an expiry date on blaming your parents for steering you in the wrong direction; the moment you are

old enough to take the wheel, responsibility lies with you. What is more, I cannot criticise my parents for

hoping that I would never experience poverty. They had been poor themselves, and I have since been

poor, and I quite agree with them that it is not an ennobling experience. Poverty entails fear, and stress,

and sometimes depression; it means a thousand petty humiliations and hardships. Climbing out of

poverty by your own efforts, that is indeed something on which to pride yourself, but poverty itself is

romanticised only by fools.

What I feared most for myself at your age was not poverty, but failure.

At your age, in spite of a distinct lack of motivation at university, where I had spent far too long in the

coffee bar writing stories, and far too little time at lectures, I had a knack for passing examinations, and

that, for years, had been the measure of success in my life and that of my peers.

I am not dull enough to suppose that because you are young, gifted and well-educated, you have never

known hardship or heartbreak. Talent and intelligence never yet inoculated anyone against the caprice

of the Fates, and I do not for a moment suppose that everyone here has enjoyed an existence of

unruffled privilege and contentment.

However, the fact that you are graduating from Harvard suggests that you are not very well-acquainted

with failure. You might be driven by a fear of failure quite as much as a desire for success. Indeed, your

conception of failure might not be too far from the average person’s idea of success, so high have you

already flown.

Ultimately, we all have to decide for ourselves what constitutes failure, but the world is quite eager to

give you a set of criteria if you let it. So I think it fair to say that by any conventional measure, a mere

seven years after my graduation day, I had failed on an epic scale. An exceptionally short-lived marriage

had imploded, and I was jobless, a lone parent, and as poor as it is possible to be in modern Britain,

without being homeless. The fears that my parents had had for me, and that I had had for myself, had

both come to pass, and by every usual standard, I was the biggest failure I knew.

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Now, I am not going to stand here and tell you that failure is fun. That period of my life was a dark one,

and I had no idea that there was going to be what the press has since represented as a kind of fairy tale

resolution. I had no idea then how far the tunnel extended, and for a long time, any light at the end of it

was a hope rather than a reality.

So why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the

inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to

direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me. Had I really succeeded at anything

else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one arena I believed I truly belonged.

I was set free, because my greatest fear had been realised, and I was still alive, and I still had a daughter

whom I adored, and I had an old typewriter and a big idea. And so rock bottom became the solid

foundation on which I rebuilt my life.

You might never fail on the scale I did, but some failure in life is inevitable. It is impossible to live without

failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all – in which

case, you fail by default.

Failure gave me an inner security that I had never attained by passing examinations. Failure taught me

things about myself that I could have learned no other way. I discovered that I had a strong will, and

more discipline than I had suspected; I also found out that I had friends whose value was truly above the

price of rubies.

The knowledge that you have emerged wiser and stronger from setbacks means that you are, ever after,

secure in your ability to survive. You will never truly know yourself, or the strength of your relationships,

until both have been tested by adversity. Such knowledge is a true gift, for all that it is painfully won,

and it has been worth more than any qualification I ever earned.

So given a Time Turner, I would tell my 21-year-old self that personal happiness lies in knowing that life

is not a check-list of acquisition or achievement. Your qualifications, your CV, are not your life, though

you will meet many people of my age and older who confuse the two. Life is difficult, and complicated,

and beyond anyone’s total control, and the humility to know that will enable you to survive its

vicissitudes.

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Now you might think that I chose my second theme, the importance of imagination, because of the part

it played in rebuilding my life, but that is not wholly so. Though I personally will defend the value of

bedtime stories to my last gasp, I have learned to value imagination in a much broader sense.

Imagination is not only the uniquely human capacity to envision that which is not, and therefore the

fount of all invention and innovation. In its arguably most transformative and revelatory capacity, it is

the power that enables us to empathise with humans whose experiences we have never shared.

One of the greatest formative experiences of my life preceded Harry Potter, though it informed much of

what I subsequently wrote in those books. This revelation came in the form of one of my earliest day

jobs. Though I was sloping off to write stories during my lunch hours, I paid the rent in my early 20s by

working at the African research department at Amnesty International’s headquarters in London.

There in my little office I read hastily scribbled letters smuggled out of totalitarian regimes by men and

women who were risking imprisonment to inform the outside world of what was happening to them. I

saw photographs of those who had disappeared without trace, sent to Amnesty by their desperate

families and friends. I read the testimony of torture victims and saw pictures of their injuries. I opened

handwritten, eye-witness accounts of summary trials and executions, of kidnappings and rapes.

Many of my co-workers were ex-political prisoners, people who had been displaced from their homes,

or fled into exile, because they had the temerity to speak against their governments. Visitors to our

offices included those who had come to give information, or to try and find out what had happened to

those they had left behind.

I shall never forget the African torture victim, a young man no older than I was at the time, who had

become mentally ill after all he had endured in his homeland. He trembled uncontrollably as he spoke

into a video camera about the brutality inflicted upon him. He was a foot taller than I was, and seemed

as fragile as a child. I was given the job of escorting him back to the Underground Station afterwards,

and this man whose life had been shattered by cruelty took my hand with exquisite courtesy, and

wished me future happiness.

And as long as I live I shall remember walking along an empty corridor and suddenly hearing, from

behind a closed door, a scream of pain and horror such as I have never heard since. The door opened,

and the researcher poked out her head and told me to run and make a hot drink for the young man

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sitting with her. She had just had to give him the news that in retaliation for his own outspokenness

against his country’s regime, his mother had been seized and executed.

Every day of my working week in my early 20s I was reminded how incredibly fortunate I was, to live in a

country with a democratically elected government, where legal representation and a public trial were

the rights of everyone.

Every day, I saw more evidence about the evils humankind will inflict on their fellow humans, to gain or

maintain power. I began to have nightmares, literal nightmares, about some of the things I saw, heard,

and read.

And yet I also learned more about human goodness at Amnesty International than I had ever known

before.

Amnesty mobilises thousands of people who have never been tortured or imprisoned for their beliefs to

act on behalf of those who have. The power of human empathy, leading to collective action, saves lives,

and frees prisoners. Ordinary people, whose personal well-being and security are assured, join together

in huge numbers to save people they do not know, and will never meet. My small participation in that

process was one of the most humbling and inspiring experiences of my life.

Unlike any other creature on this planet, humans can learn and understand, without having

experienced. They can think themselves into other people’s places.

Of course, this is a power, like my brand of fictional magic, that is morally neutral. One might use such

an ability to manipulate, or control, just as much as to understand or sympathise.

And many prefer not to exercise their imaginations at all. They choose to remain comfortably within the

bounds of their own experience, never troubling to wonder how it would feel to have been born other

than they are. They can refuse to hear screams or to peer inside cages; they can close their minds andhearts to any suffering that does not touch them personally; they can refuse to know.

I might be tempted to envy people who can live that way, except that I do not think they have any fewer

nightmares than I do. Choosing to live in narrow spaces leads to a form of mental agoraphobia, and that

brings its own terrors. I think the wilfully unimaginative see more monsters. They are often more afraid.

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What is more, those who choose not to empathise enable real monsters. For without ever committing

an act of outright evil ourselves, we collude with it, through our own apathy.

One of the many things I learned at the end of that Classics corridor down which I ventured at the age of

18, in search of something I could not then define, was this, written by the Greek author Plutarch: What

we achieve inwardly will change outer reality.

That is an astonishing statement and yet proven a thousand times every day of our lives. It expresses, in

part, our inescapable connection with the outside world, the fact that we touch other people’s lives

simply by existing.

But how much more are you, Harvard graduates of 2008, likely to touch other people’s lives? Your

intelligence, your capacity for hard work, the education you have earned and received, give you unique

status, and unique responsibilities. Even your nationality sets you apart. The great majority of you

belong to the world’s only remaining superpower. The way you vote, the way you live, the way you

protest, the pressure you bring to bear on your government, has an impact way beyond your borders.

That is your privilege, and your burden.

If you choose to use your status and influence to raise your voice on behalf of those who have no voice;

if you choose to identify not only with the powerful, but with the powerless; if you retain the ability to

imagine yourself into the lives of those who do not have your advantages, then it will not only be your

proud families who celebrate your existence, but thousands and millions of people whose reality you

have helped change. We do not need magic to change the world, we carry all the power we need inside

ourselves already: we have the power to imagine better.

I am nearly finished. I have one last hope for you, which is something that I already had at 21. The

friends with whom I sat on graduation day have been my friends for life. They are my children’s

godparents, the people to whom I’ve been able to turn in times of trouble, people who have been kind

enough not to sue me when I took their names for Death Eaters. At our graduation we were bound by

enormous affection, by our shared experience of a time that could never come again, and, of course, by

the knowledge that we held certain photographic evidence that would be exceptionally valuable if any

of us ran for Prime Minister.

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So today, I wish you nothing better than similar friendships. And tomorrow, I hope that even if you

remember not a single word of mine, you remember those of Seneca, another of those old Romans I

met when I fled down the Classics corridor, in retreat from career ladders, in search of ancient wisdom:

As is a tale, so is life: not how long it is, but how good it is, is what matters.

I wish you all very good lives. Thank you very much.

Full transcript:

Class of 2009! First I’d like you to get up, wave and cheer your supportive family and friends! Show your

love!

It is a great honor for me to be here today.

Now wait a second. I know: that’s such a cliché. You’re thinking: every graduation speaker says that – It’s

a great honor. But, in my case, it really is so deeply true – being here is more special and more personal

for me than most of you know. I’d like to tell you why.

A long time ago, in the cold September of 1962, there was a Steven’s co-op at this very university. That

co-op had a kitchen with a ceiling that had been cleaned by student volunteers every decade or so.

Picture a college girl named Gloria, climbing up high on a ladder, struggling to clean that filthy ceiling.

Standing on the floor, a young boarder named Carl was admiring the view. And that’s how they met.

They were my parents, so I suppose you could say I’m a direct result of that kitchen chemistry

experiment, right here at Michigan. My Mom is here with us today, and we should probably go find the

spot and put a plaque up on the ceiling that says: "Thanks Mom and Dad!"

Everyone in my family went to school here at Michigan: me, my brother, my Mom and Dad – all of us.

My Dad actually got the quantity discount: all three and a half of his degrees are from here. His Ph.D.

was in Communication Science because they thought Computers were just a passing fad. He earned it 44

years ago. He and Mom made a big sacrifice for that. They argued at times over pennies, while raising

my newborn brother. Mom typed my Dad’s dissertation by hand. This velvet hood I’m wearing, this was

my Dad’s. And this diploma, just like the one you’re are about to get, that was my Dad’s. And myunderwear, that was… oh never mind.

My father’s father worked in the Chevy plant in Flint, Michigan. He was an assembly line worker. He

drove his two children here to Ann Arbor, and told them: That is where you’re going to go to college.

Both his kids did graduate from Michigan. That was the American dream. His daughter, Beverly, is with

us today. My Grandpa used to carry an "Alley Oop" hammer – a heavy iron pipe with a hunk of lead

melted on the end. The workers made them during the sit-down strikes to protect themselves. When I

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was growing up, we used that hammer whenever we needed to pound a stake or something into the

ground. It is wonderful that most people don’t need to carry a heavy blunt object for protection

anymore. But just in case, I have it here.

My Dad became a professor at uh… Michigan State, and I was an incredibly lucky boy. A professor’s life

is pretty flexible, and he was able to spend oodles of time raising me. Could there be a better upbringingthan university brat?

What I’m trying to tell you is that this is WAY more than just a homecoming for me. It’s not easy for me

to express how proud I am to be here, with my Mom, my brother and my wife Lucy, and with all of you,

at this amazing institution that is responsible for my very existence. I am thrilled for all of you, and I’m

thrilled for your families and friends, as all of us join the great, big Michigan family I feel I’ve been a part

of all of my life.

What I’m also trying to tell you is that I know exactly what it feels like to be sitting in your seat, listening

to some old gasbag give a long-winded commencement speech. Don’t worry. I’ll be brief.

I have a story about following dreams. Or maybe more accurately, it’s a story about finding a path tomake those dreams real.

You know what it’s like to wake up in the middle of the night with a vivid dream? And you know how, if

you don’t have a pencil and pad by the bed to write it down, it will be completely gone the next

morning?

Well, I had one of those dreams when I was 23. When I suddenly woke up, I was thinking: what if we

could download the whole web, and just keep the links and… I grabbed a pen and started writing!

Sometimes it is important to wake up and stop dreaming. I spent the middle of that night scribbling out

the details and convincing myself it would work. Soon after, I told my advisor, Terry Winograd, it would

take a couple of weeks to download the web – he nodded knowingly, fully aware it would take muchlonger but wise enough to not tell me. The optimism of youth is often underrated! Amazingly, I had no

thought of building a search engine. The idea wasn’t even on the radar. But, much later we happened

upon a better way of ranking webpages to make a really great search engine, and Google was born.

When a really great dream shows up, grab it!

When I was here at Michigan, I had actually been taught how to make dreams real! I know it sounds

funny, but that is what I learned in a summer camp converted into a training program called

Leadershape. Their slogan is to have a "healthy disregard for the impossible". That program encouraged

me to pursue a crazy idea at the time: I wanted to build a personal rapid transit system on campus to

replace the buses. It was a futuristic way of solving our transportation problem. I still think a lot about

transportation – you never loose a dream, it just incubates as a hobby. Many things that people laborhard to do now, like cooking, cleaning, and driving will require much less human time in the future. That

is, if we "have a healthy disregard for the impossible" and actually build new solutions.

I think it is often easier to make progress on mega-ambitious dreams. I know that sounds completely

nuts. But, since no one else is crazy enough to do it, you have little competition. There are so few people

this crazy that I feel like I know them all by first name. They all travel as if they are pack dogs and stick to

each other like glue. The best people want to work the big challenges. That is what happened with

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Google. Our mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.

How can that not get you excited? But we almost didn’t start Google because my co-founder Sergey and

I were too worried about dropping out of our Ph.D. program. You are probably on the right track if you

feel like a sidewalk worm during a rainstorm! That is about how we felt after we maxed out three credit

cards buying hard disks off the back of a truck. That was the first hardware for Google. Parents and

friends: more credit cards always help. What is the one sentence summary of how you change the

world? Always work hard on something uncomfortably exciting!

As a Ph.D. student, I actually had three projects I wanted to work on. Thank goodness my advisor said,

"why don’t you work on the web for a while". He gave me some seriously good advice because the web

was really growing with people and activity, even in 1995! Technology and especially the internet can

really help you be lazy. Lazy? What I mean is a group of three people can write software that millions

can use and enjoy. Can three people answer the phone a million times a day? Find the leverage in the

world, so you can be more lazy!

Overall, I know it seems like the world is crumbling out there, but it is actually a great time in your life to

get a little crazy, follow your curiosity, and be ambitious about it. Don’t give up on your dreams. Theworld needs you all!

So here’s my final story:

On a day like today, you might feel exhilarated — like you’ve just been shot out of a cannon at the circus

– and even invincible. Don’t ever forget that incredible feeling. But also: always remember that the

moments we have with friends and family, the chances we have to do things that might make a big

difference in the world, or even to make a small difference to someone you love — all those wonderful

chances that life gives us, life also takes away. It can happen fast, and a whole lot sooner than you think.

In late March 1996, soon after I had moved to Stanford for grad school, my Dad had difficultly breathing

and drove to the hospital. Two months later, he died. And that was it. I was completely devastated.

Many years later, after a startup, after falling in love, and after so many of life’s adventures, I found

myself thinking about my Dad. Lucy and I were far away in a steaming hot village walking through

narrow streets. There were wonderful friendly people everywhere, but it was a desperately poor place –

people used the bathroom inside and it flowed out into the open gutter and straight into the river. We

touched a boy with a limp leg, the result of paralysis from polio. Lucy and I were in rural India – one of

the few places where Polio still exists. Polio is transmitted fecal to oral, usually through filthy water.

Well, my Dad had Polio. He went on a trip to Tennessee in the first grade and caught it. He was

hospitalized for two months and had to be transported by military DC-3 back home – his first flight. My

Dad wrote, "Then, I had to stay in bed for over a year, before I started back to school". That is actually a

quote from his fifth grade autobiography. My Dad had difficulty breathing his whole life, and thecomplications of Polio are what took him from us too soon. He would have been very upset that Polio

still persists even though we have a vaccine. He would have been equally upset that back in India we

had polio virus on our shoes from walking through the contaminated gutters that spread the disease.

We were spreading the virus with every footstep, right under beautiful kids playing everywhere. The

world is on the verge of eliminating polio, with 328 people infected so far this year. Let’s get it done

soon. Perhaps one of you will do that.

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My Dad was valedictorian of Flint Mandeville High School 1956 class of about 90 kids. I happened across

his graduating speech recently, and it blew me away. 53 years ago at his graduation my Dad said: "…we

are entering a changing world, one of automation and employment change where education is an

economic necessity. We will have increased periods of time to do as we wish, as our work week and

retirement age continue to decline. … We shall take part in, or witness, developments in science,

medicine, and industry that we can not dream of today. … It is said that the future of any nation can be

determined by the care and preparation given to its youth. If all the youths of America were as fortunate

in securing an education as we have been, then the future of the United States would be even more

bright than it is today."

If my Dad was alive today, the thing I think he would be most happy about is that Lucy and I have a baby

in the hopper. I think he would have been annoyed that I hadn’t gotten my Ph.D. yet (thanks,

Michigan!). Dad was so full of insights, of excitement about new things, that to this day, I often wonder

what he would think about some new development. If he were here today – well, it would be one of the

best days of his life. He’d be like a kid in a candy store. For a day, he’d be young again.

Many of us are fortunate enough to be here with family. Some of us have dear friends and family to gohome to. And who knows, perhaps some of you, like Lucy and I, are dreaming about future families of

your own. Just like me, your families brought you here, and you brought them here. Please keep them

close and remember: they are what really matters in life.

Thanks, Mom; Thanks, Lucy.

And thank you, all, very much.

(A valedictory speech delivered before the graduating class of 2010 at the University of the Philippines—

Diliman with assistance from speechwriter Lloyd Luna)

Wow. What can I say? We’re all here. And we’re all for one thing: that diploma.

Thank you.

University of the Philippines Graduation Speech Diliman

http://www.lloydluna.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/up-diliman.jpeg

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Do you guys feel the heat? Oh, yes. The rumor isn’t a rumor at all. We’re now getting in what geniuses

call global warming. And former US Vice President Al Gore is coming to Manila to talk about the

environment and maybe give some tips on “how to save the world.”

But it won’t interest us today, right? What I mean is, there’s much more important thing than talking

about the environment. I think today, it’s much more important to feel what seems to be a miracle that

we’ve all got here:

We’re now called UP graduates!

We’ve been hearing “congratulations” here and there. My suggestion is for you to reply like this:

Greeting is good but we need jobs. “Congratulations” would come and go but the memories of us being

here at least once in our lifetime is something that surely sticks to the mind and heart of every Iskolar ng

Bayan.

My remark for today focuses on only one thing, certainly not about the environment. Many times,

people have blamed the environment for their misfortune. It’s going to focus instead on being in the

environment.

I say this because I don’t think people understand really when they read: “Keep off the grass.” (They love

stepping on it); “Don’t pick flowers.” (They do especially during cost-cutting Valentine); “Post No Bill.”

(Wala palang bayad ang pagdidikit dito e); “Don’t throw your garbage here.” (Oh, where else do I put

these trashes?); or “Bawal umihi dito.” (Tingin sa kaliwa, tingin sa kanan at kapag walang tao, just do it.)

Believe it or not, I find it boring to talk about the environment or to even listen to whoever lectures

about it especially when I’m ok with my subjects or my boyfriend or girlfriend still loves me and there’s

no third party yet or my parents still do send me my allowances.

Perhaps it’s true: If it isn’t raining, you don’t have to fix the roof. If it’s raining, how can you f ix the roof?

In the end, we are all affected by what happens outside and so let me share with you my one and only

question about this environment thing—no rhetoric, just a plain question and a sort of analysis.

Why do we have to spend 12.9 billion pesos a year for our Environment Department?

Generally, I think the answers are:

One, our government officials needed to get more money that they think they deserve. Government

service is business and in business, they need to profit.

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Two, illegal logging is one easy way to make money. Just bribe your local officials and you’re good to go.

Three, we are never responsible with our own garbage and we don’t know the difference between

biodegradable and non-biodegrable therefore we mix them up.

Four, we don’t fix our cars and we don’t go after smoke belchers (oppps, I’m sorry. Our government

goes after them and then get some bribe and let them go.)

Five, we throw our trashes anywhere we want to (the easier and faster you get rid of it, the better).

Six, we solve our traffic problems by damaging our marine environment.

Seven, we don’t care about turning the power off when an appliance isn’t in use.

Therefore, we pay for our own irresponsible actions—all of us. Because we don’t care (and why would

we?), we spend our own money for fixing “the environment.”

It’s unthinkable—unthinkable for a summa cum laude like me, unthinkable for any member of the

Philippines’ best university (no, not the best state university. I said, the best university. No argument.)

Unthinkable? Yes. Listen up.

Instead of putting more money in education, we are forced to allot 12 billion pesos just to fix the

environment, which we have destroyed and have been destroying, whether we are conscious about it or

not.

This graduation isn’t about that diploma alone. I don’t think it’s only about marching and taking that

fake scrolled paper. I think the challenge really is for us to go out there and start working to be in the

environment.

Environment subject is a boring subject. It’s really boring—a waste of time, even.

But it makes some sense when we realize that it’s affecting every step that we make and every path we

take. It makes sense when we go out on the streets, inhale polluted air and drink treated water. It

makes sense when we can’t go out to work because every street is hip-deep flooded.

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It makes sense when we are no longer sure about our food safety. It makes sense when you see your

future children struggling to breathe, longing to touch real trees, and asking for fresh water and you

don’t know where to get them.

It’s boring but it makes sense.

As we leave this institution for good, my prayer is for each one of us to also leave with nothing but a

caring attitude. Many people won’t care about the world where they live in for many reasons—they

have never cared and they probably will never.

But I believe we can or maybe we should.

Thank you and God bless.

Mikaela Irene Fudolig ñ BS Physics

Speech at the Commencement Exercises, UPD

April 22, 2007

One of the things that strike me as being very “UP Diliman” is the way UPD students can’t seem to stay

on the pavement. From every street corner that bounds an unpaved piece of land, one will espy a narrow

trail that cuts the corner, or leads from it. Every lawn around the buildings sports at least one of these

paths, starting from a point nearest to the IKOT stop and ending at the nearest entry to the building. The

trails are beaten on the grass by many pairs of feet wanting to save a fraction of a meter of traveling, no

matter that doing so will exact some cost to the shoes, or, to the ubiquitous slippers, especially when the

trails are new.

What do these paths say about us, UP students?

One could say that the UP student is enamored with Mathematics and Pythagoras, hence these triangles

formed by the pavement and the path. Many among you would disagree.

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Others could say that the UP student is naturally countercultural. And the refusal to use the pavement is

just one of the myriads of ways to show his defiance of the order of things. This time, many would agree.

Still, others will say that the UP student is the model of today’s youth: they want everything easier,

faster, now. The walkable paths appeal to them because they get to their destination faster, and

presumably, with less effort. Now that is only partly true, and totally unfair.

These trails weren’t always walkable. No doubt they started as patches of grass, perhaps overgrown.

Those who first walked them must have soiled their shoes, stubbed their toes, or had insects biting their

legs, all in the immovable belief that the nearest distance between two points is a straight line. They

might even have seen snakes cross their paths. But the soiled footwear, sore toes, and itchy legs started

to conquer the grass. Other people, seeing the yet faint trail, followed. And as more and more walked the

path, the grass gave in and stopped growing altogether, making the path more and more visible, more

and more walkable.

The persistence of the paths pays tribute to those UP students who walked them first ñ the pioneers of

the unbeaten tracks: the defiant and curious few who refuse the familiar and comfortable; the out-of-

the-box thinkers who solve problems instead of fretting about them; the brave who dare do things

differently, and open new opportunities to those who follow.

They say how one behaved in the past would determine how he behaves in the future. And as we leave

the University, temporarily or for good, let us call on the pioneering, defiant, and brave spirit that built

the paths to guide us in this next phase of our life.

We have been warned time and again. Our new world that they call “adulthood” is one that’s full of

compromises, where success is determined more by the ability to belong than by the ability to think,

where it is much easier to do as everyone else does. Daily we are bombarded with so much news of

despair about the state of our nation, and the apparent, perverse sense of satisfaction our politicians get

from vilifying our state of affairs. It is fashionable to migrate to other countries to work in deceptively

high-paying jobs like nursing and teaching, forgetting that even at their favored work destinations,

nurses and teachers are some of the lowest paid professionals. The lure of high and immediate monetary

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benefits in some low-end outsourcing jobs has drawn even some of the brightest UP students away from

both industry and university teaching to which they would have been better suited.

Like the sidewalks and pavement, these paths are the easiest to take.

But, like the sidewalks and pavement, these paths take longer to traverse, just as individual successes do

not always make for national progress. The unceasing critic could get elected, but not get the job done.

The immigrant could get his visa, but disappear from our brainpower pool. The highly paid employee

would be underutilized for his skills, and pine to get the job he truly wants, but is now out of his reach.

And the country, and we, are poorer because of these.

Today, the nation needs brave, defiant pioneers to reverse our nation’s sl ide to despair. Today, we must

call upon the spirit that beat the tracks. Today, we must present an alternative way of doing things.

Do NOT just take courage, for courage is not enough. Instead, be BRAVE! It will take bravery to go

against popular wisdom, against the clichéd expectations of family and friends. It will take

bravery to gamble your future by staying in the country and try to make a prosperous life here. It might

help if for a start, we try to see why our Korean friends are flocking to our country. Why, as many of us

line up for immigrant visas in various embassies, they get themselves naturalized and settle here. Do

they know something we don’t?

Do NOT just be strong in your convictions, for strength is not enough. Instead, DEFY the pressure to lead

a comfortable, but middling life. Let us lead this country from the despair of mediocrity. Let us not seek

to do well, but strive to EXCEL in everything that we do. This, so others will see us as a nation of brains of

the highest quality, not just of brawn that could be had for cheap.

Take NOT the road less traveled. Rather, MAKE new roads, BLAZE new trails, FIND new routes to your

dreams. Unlike the track-beaters in campus who see where they’re going, we may not know how far we

can go. But if we are brave, defiant searchers of excellence, we will go far. Explore possibilities, that

others may get a similar chance. I have tried it myself. And I’m speaking to you now.

7/29/2019 poem gco


But talk is cheap, they say. And so I put my money where my mouth is. Today, I place myself in the

service of the University, if it will have me. I would like to teach, to share knowledge, and perhaps to be

an example to new UP students in thinking and striving beyond the limits of the possible. This may only

be a small disturbance in the grass. But I hope you’ll come with me, and trample a new path.

poem gco

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