Changing for the Better
Our most esteemed administrators and teachers, dear parents, beloved friends, ladies and gentlemen. How many times have we imagined what this day to be like? I have to say, I have thought about this day so many times I could have memorized every imagined scene. But not even the best of my imagined scenes could compare to the real scene I am greeted with right now. Robin Sharma once said, “Change is hard at first, messy in the middle, and gorgeous at the end”.
When I first got here, I remember thinking that the school was huge and crowded. I was afraid I wasn’t going to fit in. But everyone I’ve gotten to know over the past few years have been great. I’ve made lots of close friends and learned from great teachers. Mrs. Waller showed me that science can be fun – especially when you learn how to DIY make cornstarch explode. I’ll never forget that horrible baby video from health class. And who knew that Ms.Magee plays the volleyball like nobody’s business? Of course, it wouldn’t have been the same without my awesome classmates.
Now that we have passed the challenges of middle school, it’s time for us to move on to a bigger fight—high school.
The lessons we have learned in class will surely help us get through that next stage, but we also need to remember that all those review sheets and textbook pages—everything we have memorized—they are not the only things that will help us through. We also need to retain the things we have learned other than the academic stuff. Gaining the courage to stand in front of the class when we can barely work the nerve to talk to the person next to us; having the dedication to complete all our math homework when the only thing we actually know about it is the fact that we have to solve it—those are but some of the things that we have learned about ourselves that go beyond our text books. Those are the things that we will need not only in high school, but even after that.
I’m glad that so many of us will be going to the same school in the fall. I used to think that going to high school would be scary, but with all my friends and everything that my teachers have taught me, all I feel now is excitement. I want to thank the teachers, the staff, Dr.Galester and Dr.Dalzin, and my classmates for a wonderful Bayside experience. On behalf of the class of 2016, I want to thank you again! I just hope that Bayside Middle School remembers us as fondly as we’ll remember it.