Schools

Haverford Grad: 'Fortune is What We Create'

Read the text of the speech by Haverford High School graduating senior Soojung Lee.

 

The following text provided by the Haverford School District is from Soojung Lee, who delievered this graduation speech on June 10 at the Haverford High School graduation.

Besides the tasty noodles and warm tea, I always look forward to one thing when I walk into a Chinese restaurant. Fortune cookies. Not because of the catch phrase fortune they offer, but because of the great expectations and anticipation that swell inside me before I open them. After a full course dinner, I nervously wait for this final treat to tell me how “fortunate” I will be for the next few days. Then when I see a thin strip of paper emerging out of the cracked opening of the cookies, I feel the excitement and anxiety at the same time. Just as we do tonight. After indulging ourselves with four years of high school entrees, we push away our empty plates and share our comments about the food until the petal-shaped goodies arrive at our tables. The only difference for us is that we get a blank fortune. We are given the fortune cookies that have nothing written in them yet. It is our job to come up with our own. Instead of encountering a prophecy that has already been printed, we are to create our own fortune. Instead of facing cliched and dull fortunes such as "conquer your fears or they will conquer you" or "a dream you have will come true" multiple times, we are to discover our own unique slogan. Our fortune will become a full meaningful sentence as we insert words that matter to us. Words that prove us strong and determined even when we face failures. Words that fulfill the truest expression of ourselves as active performers in life and as human beings.

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The four years we spent as high schoolers only assembled a few beginning words of our fortune. We barely started our sentence. Some of us might still have no idea how to start our sentence. Because as we depart for a new world, all that we experienced and enjoyed in Haverford and everything we took for granted will no longer be there. But they will be imprinted in us as cherished memories and painfully learned lessons. Going into the main office to be greeted by the all-knowing madam Cutillo, learning chemistry from Mrs. Durso and listening to Mr. Hulse’s extraordinary stories, relentlessly training under the sun for weeks before the biggest match of the season, sleeping in until 10:30 during keystones exam week and dancing with abandon during the festivities of senior prom – these routines will be left behind as we proceed to the next stage of our lives. We will move on, but the values, knowledge, and the personality that we have cultivated in high school will reside in us no matter where we are heading. Because during the years of high school, we started to search for what we believe in and discover where our passion lies. We learned to propel ourselves to progress and resist fallacy and selfishness. We prepared ourselves to live life to the fullest.

So here we stand. After tonight, we will be facing decisions after decisions and choices after choices. Let us not waste our time or mindlessly pursue something that we don’t side with. Let us compose the best sentence we can offer for our fortune cookies because in the end, fortune is what we create, not what we unexpectedly pull out of thin air—or cookies.

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Thank you and good luck to the Class of 2013.


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