Thank you to the Lauren Fan Club for cheering me on. Membership is $30, but I’ve heard from testimonials that it’s worth every pretty penny. Now, I don’t intend to give a long speech. Well, because Socrates gave a long speech and his friends killed him. Still, I’m willing to take the off-chance that someone would actually try tackling me as I give this unprecedented lecture. To start off, I think I’ll explain how my senior year ended here. [private]
While my classmates were being shipped off to Virginia Beach, I was lying in a hospital bed pondering the street value of my pain drugs. I mean, choosing between pain management and the money I could make selling it to pay off my impending student loan was an arduous task.
Then, once that moment of insanity passed, my next thought was how the heck I was going to give this speech in less than 2 weeks after being stitched up like Frankenstein’s monster. Yes, as I lay squirming in pain in the Intensive Care Unit, I imagined who could have given this speech for me…and then it hit me. No one could. Only the flamboyant nature of Lauren Stone could truly articulate these words with clarity. So, here I am, heavily medicated, trembling, yet ready to say goodbye. No, the funeral’s been cancelled… I’m speaking more as a farewell than a final salute.
With that said, I hope you all brought a #2 pencil, because you may learn a few things about me that you never knew, nor ever wanted to know. For example, I’m a complainer. The fact that I need to stand on an old beer crate in order for all of you lovely people to see my face irks me to no end. I mean, come on. My dog could have given a more powerful speech if I had only trained him to effectively use a podium. Secondly, the amount of piping hot air radiating in this room right now is enough to heat this school for an entire winter without costing the town a cent.
Now, on a brighter note, today marks the first day of probation for me, I mean if that’s how one can look at it. Those school vacations, my fellow classmates? That was probation. Monday morning, bright and early, the school bus would escort you back to your cell, and there Mrs. Evans and Mrs. Bienes would be scoping the halls for out-of-control patients in need of a little ISS. Not that I was ever sent there, or anything. Though, I’m fairly sure some of the teachers were reluctant to ask about those few times they noticed me in that room. You see, ISS, also known as “in school suspension”, is in the guidance office, the same place where the faculty copier is. I sometimes used the computer in there, but wow, those priceless expressions from teachers, shocked and yet pensive to ask me what horrid crime I had committed. Nope. I’m that weird kid that likes to block the copy room with my dog just to see people struggle. I believe gym but in truth…! mostly just spent it doing homework, writing papers, and practicing how to find the best exit out of here. Pfft. I confess to nothing.
Well, I suppose the rest of this speech is dedicated to thanking people. I have said thank you more times than I have complained about Mr. Giumarra expressing, “I’m feeling a quiz today”, and more times than the number of horrible grammar mistakes I have witnessed on Facebook. Although I laugh at it on the outside, deep down, the kindness of others during my time here at New Lebanon has meant more to me than any of you will ever know. As Hillary Clinton once said, “It takes a village.” And it surely does with Lauren Stone. Thank you to Mrs. Slattery for standing at the gym door every single day like a royal guard protecting the castle to collect my lunch pail. Thank you to Barb for making that long journey around the school as easy for me as possible. Thank you to Bob for cleaning up my dog’s pre-digested breakfast in Calculus class, and thank you to my sister Mackenzie. Both the former and the latter flow beautifully into one sentence. Thank you to Mrs. Squier for teaching me there ain’t nuttin better than goodly grammar now that I is educated. Because of her, I can properly correct every teenager who still cannot use the proper forms of ‘you’re’ and ‘your’.
Thank you to Mrs. Rice and Mrs. Sowalski because I can’t seem to separate them into their own sentences. They have both taught me sarcasm and courage. Both have given some of the best laughs of my life, and both have done everything possible to make my experience here at school easier. In the last few months here, Mrs. Rice had to drag the wheelchair down the front steps every morning before pushing my exorberant amount of weight around the perimeter of the school to get to my class. Mrs. Sowalski would get my lunchbox from the office every day so that I wouldn’t have to mosey on down there myself, and risk breaking my neck before filing a lawsuit thereafter. Thank you to Mr. Howe for backing the school bus into my driveway for years without hitting anything, alive or inanimate, and for pulling me out of snowbanks when my dog decided he’d rather play in the snow. Thank you to Mrs. Bienes, who for 14 weeks brought me my missed schoolwork every single day, and protected me all through Spain, even though I did get lost in France on the way back, but that story is for another time. Thank you to my parents for fighting my demons even after I had stopped. Thank you for allowing me to be my own worst critic, because nothing hurts more than someone else’s disappointment. Thank you to my friends, my teachers, and to my classmates, just in case you don’t fall into one of those categories.
Now if you haven’t been taking note, get your pencils ready. Here it goes: If there is one thing I can teach all of you, it would be to stand out, always. We were all admitted to this asylum because we were too ordinary. Now look at yourselves, you have the potential. [/private]