Yes, friends, the above title is true.  You may extend your hand to me in congratulations.  In an unceremonious manner after the graduation ceremony as completed, my homeroom teacher handed me my high school diploma.  For the past twelve years I have worn a tie, prayed before the start of each class, kept my hair above the collar (most of the time), and shown the reverence and disciple that is becoming of each and every student that passes through the doors of  Bishop McDevitt.  For the past twelve years, I have been chewed up by the Catholic school system, and now they have deemed me worthy to be spit out.  Covered in parochial saliva, I now ask the most pertinent questions: did I make the most of it and was it all worthwhile?

     The academic curriculum at McDevitt could hardly be called rigorous, but that does not mean it was easy, either.  I was not up every night studying until the wee hours, falling asleep with a book in my lap.  Truth be told, I spent more time than I should have  taking naps, eating pudding, online stealing from the music industry, and watching genre television.  Every once in a while I would buckle down and force out the work, but my overall work habits were not what you could call scholarly.  I'm always amazed by prep school movies like Dead Poets Society where students gather together and immediately form study groups.  I like to picture myself in study groups, but in reality most of my work for classes such as economics was done half-assedly in the TV studio before homeroom.

     So, the workload I handled at McDevitt was enough to make me feel like I'd accomplished something when I did well and not backbreaking or pretentious enough to qualify me for one of our nation's fine Ivy League schools.  I was unfortunately an Honors Brat, which basically meant I was privy to hearing the unwavering refrain of "I expected better from an honors class," from at least three of my teachers each year.  I sometimes wonder if I really deserved to be in those advanced classes.  Did I truly present an accurate perspective of topics like yellow journalism, the Trail of Tears, and the murder of Daniel Faulkner?  Did I do literary justice to the works of authors like William Faulkner, Nick Hornby, and Charles Baudelaire?  Or were most of my term papers desperate attempts to meet requirements and do well enough to maintain first honors status?

     I suppose it's futile for me to quibble about whether I really earned the diploma that was presented to me on June 6.  I was merely a student, and if my educators found no quibbles in my academic performance then I had no option but to oblige them.  Even though I am sure a few of my teachers and overseers could accurately describe me as notoriously argumentative, I do hope I have left a good impression on some of them.  I feel this way because towards the end of the school, I began to feel small and faceless in regards to the faculty and administrators.

     Around the end of the 3rd quarter and the beginning of the 4th, my classmates and I were subjected to several early morning meetings where we were herded into the cafeteria and uniformly yelled at by various faculty members.  They told us our class was one of the worst they'd seen in years, that a great number of us were in danger of failing, and even promised that a few of us would never see a cap and gown.  Of the many people who took the microphone that morning, only one bothered to recognize the students that did behave and continued to do well in their classes.  All my friends were the kind of kids I'd imagine teachers would want to have: intelligent, sharp, and willing to learn.  Yet we all sat there in near shock as our administrators expressed their overall disappointment with the class of 2003.

     In some ways, the administration's impersonal dissatisfaction did not really matter.  They were venting frustration with the few bad apples dragging down the whole tree.  Perhaps they were counting on the smart students to be wise enough to know the attack was not aimed at them.  Regardless of how the faculty really felt, only a small number of them came to our senior prom and an even smaller number came to sign yearbooks on class night.  In the summer heat of July, it scarcely matters now but at least my high school experience proved to me that actions do speak louder than words.  And those meetings were pretty loud.

     In the dwindling last few weeks of high school, perhaps my biggest peeve was that I did not get a seat on the stage for graduation.  The stage-dwellers were students who had distinguished themselves so much that they received awards recognizing their achievement.  My own sister won two or three of these awards.  I foolishly stayed awake nights trying to figure out why I had not gotten a seat on the stage or imagining ridiculous situations in which they realize they made a mistake and award me a belated seat.  When graduation practices began and I finally saw all the stage-dwellers in one place, I was certainly jealous and a bit furious.  The majority of the people deserved to be there, but some of them were people I could never imagine achieving such a distinction.  I allowed myself to agonize over this perceived slight until almost the day of graduation itself.  When they began to hand out meaningless awards for things like perfect attendance and school spirit, I was no longer as bothered and realized I have had my share of times in the spotlight, and should be happy for my friends who were receiving awards they had worked hard for.   Also, I had to laugh when it turned out that both the Salutatorian and the Valedictorian used the exact same Ralph Waldo Emerson quote in their speechs.

     As it turns out, being upset over not getting on the stage for graduation was the final pointless agony I would inflict on myself while attending McDevitt.  One of my sharpest recollections of high school is laying awake at night, worrying about the many tasks I would have to complete in the coming weeks.  Worries about tests, deadlines, projects, social functions, and extracurricular activities all received equal anxiety as I often fell into a restless sleep.   Most of the time, this anxiety was merely my way of working out the many problems I had to face.

     Other times, however, I let my anxiety go unaddressed and learned another of high school's important lessons: failure.  I didn't always pass tests.  I didn't always hand projects in on time.  I didn't always keep my anger in check.  My parent's weren't always happy with my report card.  Extracurricular activities weren't always a fun after-school haven.

     Despite the many achievements I can claim, I know what it's like to be aware I should have done better, to be disappointed with how things turn out, and to know what it's like to have faults. But through my failures, I recognized they were an occasional occurrence of life.  I will xperience them for the rest of my life, but I have learned they do not signal the end of my life, whether it be academically or personally.

     Now that I've received my final report card and poured over the messages in my yearbook countless times, I can look back at my high school days with the proper conviction.  I think I would have liked to take more chances.  I know it sounds crazy, but maybe I should have spent more time in the discipline office.  Other than feeding my ego, I don't really know what advantages my perfect conduct has garnered me.  No college has approached me offering a full scholarship because I've never been late or caught out of bounds.  On the other hand, I think my perfect conduct record is something to be proud of considering I got away with calling a certain teacher a Nazi.   Regardless of such frivolities, I regret my shy behavior.  Despite my wallflower tendencies, I did manage to form some great friendships and happy memories with various McDevitt folk.  But I can't help but wonder which friendships could have been fuller, deeper, or different if I had been more open, more outgoing, and willing to risk rejection.

     What I'm most proud of about my high school career is that I am not the person I was when I began as a freshman in September of 1999.  I have gained self-confidence, strengthened old friendships and found new ones, discovered things to love in life, and overcame many of the anxieties that had plagued me in grade school.   And unlike the Jackson M. Brody of 1999, I am allowed to see R-rated movies.  As I look towards the future, I only hope that my first month at Drexel University does not topple the self-confidence I worked so hard during high school to build.

     In the month or so since I've graduated, I have come to understand the distinction between a cynic and a bitter sentimentalist.  A cynic looks everywhere to find faults and criticism with what they see before them.  They mock what others hold dear and remember fondly.  The bitter sentimentalist is someone who realizes too late what has passed by, and while they cannot remember all of the past with a smile, at least yearn to relive those memories close to their heart.  I admit to being more cynical than the average person and as you can discern from this little essay I am a bit critical of my old high school, yet at the very least I miss the breakfast table, AP English, licking batteries, the Royal Masque, and walking to the bus lanes.*  To all the friends and teachers who have inspired me a small part of my diploma belongs to you, but I think my mom would be pretty angry with me if I cut it up.

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