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14 HACKLEY REVIEW COMMENCEMENT SUPPLEMENT 2017 Commencement Addresses The 2017 Commencement Address by Allison Pataki ’03 is reprinted in the Summer 2017 Hackley Review. Watch the video here. Visit our online galleries to view and download more photos: Pre-ceremony Commencement The Salutatory Address Watch the video here. Uriel Arturo Garcia ’17 Before I commence this Commencement, I want to offer a sincere welcome to the Board of Trustees, Mr. Wirtz, Mr. King, the faculty, the families, but most of all to my fellow students, the Hackley Class of 2017. Now, I stand before you all both honored and anxious with the job of delivering a unique speech, which did not seem hard until last Tuesday when I finally forced myself to sit down and write this one. Over the past four years, but especially the last week, my beloved grade has been subjected to numerous speeches that covered everything from the meaning of life to the small, unsexy things that matter in this world. While those speakers had years of experience, I’m just a kid. Often, I would stay up late saying to myself, “Think, Uriel Arturo Garcia,” as if I were my own mother scolding me. Finally, I decided to talk about the freedom that awaits us at the end of this ceremony and a few anecdotes. This freedom gives us the ability to manipulate our own lives to the manner in which we want them to be. For example, most of our class is going to college this coming fall. The rest will attend college the following year and in the meantime take interesting gap years that will lead them to, hopefully, grow as people while also learning. On the other hand, one lucky person in our grade will be beginning the college process this coming fall because the person decided for whatever reason to wait. At first, I thought “what a moron,” but now, I see that he is simply taking control of his own life, and good for him. He will get valuable work and traveling experience that will help him have a firmer grip on his own path that will lead him where he will want to go instead of walking on a narrow road with a set start and end location. With freedom, we can choose what to study. We decide what we are going to learn, and I wish my peers will pick some out-of-the-box classes, if you will, such as cooking, dancing or maybe learning how to drive stick. This brings me to my first story. I was in México with my cousin on a farm. He was teaching me how to switch between the first and second gear. Anyways, as he was doing that, he started convulsing on the wheel. We were on a narrow road between a 30 feet ditch filled with water and a smaller one that separated the road from the crop field. I took the shaking wheel and pushed it so that we landed on
COMMENCEMENT 15 the smaller one. I rushed out, gave him CPR, and when the seizure stopped, I carried him over my shoulder for a mile to the farm house. Now, the point of the story is not that I am just as awesome as you have been thinking. Rather, there are two lessons: first, you never know when you are going to use the information that you have learned throughout your life. I gave him CPR a month after we all took the class at the end of junior year. Second, you never know what kind of experiences a “class” can give you. Freedom allows us the opportunity to make or not make good choices. Frankly, for the bad choices, there is a learning curve, and everything has a consequence. I would know because I have made bad choices over the years, and here is one of them. Sometime in spring a peer changed his profile picture to support Palestine. Normally, I just leave things alone like that because it is not my place to intervene, but in a zealous mood, I decided to challenge him because I believed that he was mocking the whole situation. It turns out that he was not, and that spat was now public on Facebook with any person that had us as friends being able to view it. I felt dumb, bad, embarrassed, terrible, and I apologized. I decided between deleting my comments or not, and I chose the latter option not because I wanted everybody to see this moment of my own idiocy because my class gets enough of that on a daily basis. I did it for two reasons. One, once it is on the internet, it stays there. Two, I wanted that to be a lesson to others but especially to me to think really carefully before clicking “post.” Nobody likes to admit that they have made a mistake much less on a public forum or event like this, but trust me, it is way better to reconcile than to behave stubbornly and deal with that nagging guilt for the rest of your life. Finally, the freedom that will arrive as soon as Izzy finishes her speech will, at first, stun us because we will not be accustomed to not going to school every single weekday from eight to three and then some if you do a sport, club or another extracurricular. Then, the freedom may come to dominate you so that you soon lose track of yourself. As we begin our first steps into the real adult world, we must come to find a balance with this newfound libertad or libérté. While I was doing a month-long study abroad in Jordan during my sophomore summer, I found myself with a lot of downtime. The first couple of days, I just stayed home in Amman because I was frightened to walk around by myself in a foreign country. Even with most of the power and responsibility being in my own hands, I limited myself. That, however, was not wasted time because I spend it with my host family over the dinner table, watching TV, talking and playing cards. Then, however, I explored. I took long walks and ended up in hundreds of places. I walked on highways, beneath bridges, parks, mosques... you name it. One night, I did not get home until three a.m. And, I lost the relationships that I had formed with my host family during the initial week I was there. Do not get caught up in freedom and cut your ties to the past—to friends, Hackley, home—because you will lose yourself, your roots and wits. It is hard to strike a balance, and I am not saying that I found, much less created, a formula for you to follow. Just try your best to not be a stranger, especially to those who were with you in the beginning. Nevertheless, I know that all of us will change, hopefully for the better in whatever shape that happens to take. Speaking about choice, I am so delighted that I decided to come here in sixth grade, and never have I ever looked back because of you, the faculty and the students. My whole grade and I owe a lot to the teachers here who inspired us in the classroom because every student at Hackley can and will find at least one teacher that will guide them under their wing. If you ever wonder why we say thank you at the end of every class, it is because you are helping at least one of us in a special way. While we’re thankful for the knowledge you give, we will always be more grateful for the support and help than anything else. So, thank you once again from me and my fellow classmates. Last but not least, I am going to miss you guys with all of my heart. I just mentioned the faculty, but most of my favorite memories have been with you. I was so lucky to be placed with you and to have known every single one of you. We’ve made it this far, so let’s enjoy the last minutes that we have left as Hackley students before we become official Hackley alums. Congratulations Hackley Class of 2017. Now, let’s go get those diplomas!
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