Now all the stuff comes at us left and right.\u00a0 Today is Father\u2019s Day and that\u2019s great.\u00a0 But also, I went to the high school graduation commencement ceremony for one of my grandsons.\u00a0 It was raining so we were sitting in raincoats on chairs covered in plastic with another sheet of plastic over our legs.\u00a0 So, it wasn\u2019t exactly relaxed and carefree.\u00a0 But you come out to support the family and these ceremonies have their logic and things will go according to this logic.\u00a0 There are the two main speeches by the kids with the best grades and there might be a poem from the poet laureate (imagine, at eighteen!).\u00a0 And all that\u2019s fine.\u00a0 It\u2019s all about beginnings and endings and growing up and moving out into a larger world.\u00a0 And that\u2019s great.\u00a0 The kids are thinking about all the friends they\u2019ve made and all the growing up they\u2019ve done and being excited for the future.\u00a0 None of the sentiments are all that original.\u00a0 But that\u2019s not the point.\u00a0 For the adults it\u2019s nostalgic and for the kids it\u2019s marking the day and saying goodbye to childhood.\u00a0 All good.<\/p>\n
But then they send up this girl whose speech is associated with some kind of a prize.\u00a0 Maybe the speech was what won her the prize.\u00a0 Although if that were true, I have to wonder who is in charge of the curriculum at this high school.<\/p>\n
First of all, it was way too long.\u00a0 The valedictorian\u2019s address took about seven minutes.\u00a0 This other thing seemed to go on and on.\u00a0 Of course, maybe it just seemed to go on for hours.\u00a0 The thesis was that the classroom was the only place where she was happy.\u00a0 And she hammered away at all the other parts of life where she was unhappy.\u00a0 Home with her family, between classes at school, at events with \u201cfriends,\u2019 working on projects with her classmates and interacting with other people in general.<\/p>\n
She described how only in the classroom did she feel accepted and valued by those around her.\u00a0 Her family, her friends, her classmates in general and just random members of the human race made her feel unappreciated and negatively valued.<\/p>\n
After this had gone on for what seemed forever Camera Girl and I looked at each other with the same expression, \u201cWhat the hell is this!\u201d\u00a0 So, I looked around and I could notice at least a few of the spectators had a pained confused expression.<\/p>\n
Finally, it ended and there was applause but compared to even the poet laureate it was short and half-hearted.\u00a0 Later on, I was thinking about this speaker.\u00a0 She was sort of odd looking.\u00a0 Short, heavy, noticeably unattractive and her expression was a sort of grimace.\u00a0 And I wondered whether her speech had been vetted by whoever is in charge of the commencement.\u00a0 I\u2019m guessing not.\u00a0 Maybe that\u2019s part of academic freedom.\u00a0 The speakers are free to say whatever they want.\u00a0 Well, if that\u2019s so then I would at least hope they would make an effort to choose for speakers only those who weren\u2019t undergoing a mental breakdown.<\/p>\n
Honestly, I wouldn\u2019t allow someone that morose to speak in front of a crowd of high school students and their friends and family.\u00a0 It might convince them that the faculty and the administration were nuts too.\u00a0 I think this girl is symptomatic of the general breakdown of mental health in this generation.\u00a0 This girl\u2019s maladapted view of life seems to have been selected as a virtue by whoever selected her to speak.\u00a0 I think we were supposed to empathize with her point of view.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t empathize with her.\u00a0 All I felt was sympathy for her friends and family for having to live with someone so messed up that sitting in a classroom was preferable to all other forms of human interaction.\u00a0 I\u2019m guessing she is part of the LGBTQ \u201ccommunity.\u201d<\/p>\n
I guess in a way I should take comfort from the experience.\u00a0 When school ends this week, I\u2019ll be seeing my grandkids.\u00a0 And we\u2019re bound to get along better than the antisocial nightmare I listened to.\u00a0 When I see the graduate, I have to ask him what he thinks of the girl who made this speech.\u00a0 There\u2019s gotta be a story behind that trainwreck.\u00a0 There\u2019s gotta be.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Now all the stuff comes at us left and right.\u00a0 Today is Father\u2019s Day and that\u2019s great.\u00a0 But also, I went to the high school<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,3366,1263],"tags":[3341,4754],"class_list":["post-33573","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-events","category-life-in-dunwich","category-stuff-that-personally-interests-me-miscellaneous","tag-dunwich","tag-life"],"yoast_head":"\n