Dear Fans,

I finally made it, guys.

Well, I never do graduation speech on stage at all, because I’ll get extremely nervous. But, I made my speech as my English project last month. I was trying to practice so hard as I can.

Here’s my graduation speech what I’m going to say:

   I am nervous and excited to be here. I know it has taken a lot of hard work and effort to overcome obstacles to get here. I want to encourage you to continue to work hard and pursue your goals and dreams.

   When I was in sixth grade, and joined a bowling team with my brother, sister, and cousin, I was afraid that we would not do well, because it was our first year. However, we stuck with it and practiced a lot. During the finals, we came in second place out of twenty-five teams. We were so proud of ourselves and what we have accomplished. I felt like all of the practicing paid off.

   Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “Whatever your life’s works is, do it well. A man should do his job so well that the living, the dead, and the unborn could do it no better.” That means you give it your all. I think as we go out into our future, we need to pursue our dreams and goals with all our heart. In the future when you want to achieve a goal, things will get in your way, but my advice to you is to give it your all. I encourage you to work hard and pursue your dreams.

   My goals and dreams are to be the best filmmaker and producer I could be. The way I plan to do this is to first visualize my dream, and take action like going to college and learning more about camera techniques. If you have a goal like mine, I say this to you; visualize your dream and you can accomplish anything.

   Vincent Van Gogh once said, “If you hear a voice within you say ‘you cannot paint,’ then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced.” What he was trying to say is, don’t listen to the negative words telling you that you can’t have your dream. The only way to silence the negative words is to achieve your dreams. So if you work hard, you too can accomplish anything. Don’t let the negative words tell you that you can’t. You can accomplish your dreams.

   Another time in my life that I encountered obstacles was in socialization. I stumbled over my words and it would embarrasses me. I would rather email someone instead of talking to them face to face, but I realized that in life you need to talk to people and communicate your thoughts and ideas, so that they can know who you are and you can know who they are. I was afraid. One day, I had to talk to one of my administrators, and I was very nervous, but I knew that I would not overcome this fear if I did nothing. I prepared my speech and talked to him. It was frightening, but one word, I felt so good. I finally did it!

   There is a movie called “McFarland USA” that reminds me of my brother, because he runs cross country. In the movie the kids thought that they had nothing to live for and they had no goals to pursue. Then, they got a coach that believed in them and taught them that their hard work will pay off. Later in the movie, they believed in themselves and each other. They ended up becoming more than they ever thought possible. I encourage you to do the same. Set your goals and believe in yourself to achieve every one of them.

Thank you all. Have a great summer. And congratulation to all class of 2015.

-Joecool597