June 5th: HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATION!

Today was super monumental.

After 12 years in the public education system, I finally graduated high school.

In the morning, I went out with my family for dim sum. Then, I got prepared for graduation. I wasn't as prepared as I wanted to be, because I couldn't get to review the speech beforehand, but at least I printed it out and I did a test-run wearing my graduation apparel.

Then, I arrived to the graduation ceremony with my father and brother. They left early since the actual ceremony started a bit later, while the other about-to-be-graduates and I waited for everyone to trickle in so that we could do another rehearsal. I was also gathering enough tickets for my family and friends. In the end, I was very happy to gather enough tickets.

Finally, the ceremony began after enough waiting. Ms. Rowland, our Senior Seminar teacher, was our staff speaker. Her speech made me want to cry; it was very sentimental and was full of character and emotion. Then, it was Yosan and my turn to deliver our student speaker speech! I haven't seen the recording of the full speech yet, but I remember having to stop for a bit because I had lost track of where I was reading, and I sped through my words a bit too much.

At least I got through it!

After that, the honors were announced, where I was announced I was graduating with Summa Cum Laude honors. Unfortunately, despite my efforts to master Spanish throughout the last 5 years, I didn't earn the Seal of Biliteracy on my diploma since my AP Spanish score hadn't come in yet. However, if I pass, I might be able to get it retroactively on my diploma, which I'm hoping I can get. Do I regret taking the courses I did in the order I took them? Well, it did cause me to not earn the Seal of Biliteracy, but if I took them differently, I think I would've had more stress during my senior year which would've been horrible. Also, maybe the extra time that I took to learn Spanish was helpful.

After that, we finally got our diploma... covers. Just the covers! Not the diploma. We have to pick up our actual diplomas at school later.

Then, when the ceremony finally ended, I went to take pictures with a lot of people. I didn't end up taking as many pictures as I wanted to but that's alright.

Finally, the day ended with a family dinner at the most popular Chinese restaurant in the area, where I ended up seeing like 6 others from my school who also just graduated, which was funny.

Thanks for everyone who was part of my journey,
Issac