Graduation Speech: Show the World Your True Self :: Graduation Speech, Commencement Address

There was a time when I dreaded going to high school. During the weeks before I started my freshman year, all I could picture were mazes of hallways and classrooms, unfamiliar faces of students and teachers, and upperclassmen who loved to torture frightened freshmen.Fortunately, my visions were exaggerated. I shortly got into the swing of things in high school. I figured out which teachers rattling did give you detention if you were late to class, which classmates were safe and those I didnt motivation as my lab partners. I began to find my place in the school, as head as e very(prenominal) champion elses place there. By October, I knew who was who and what was what.In November, everything changed.I was diagnosed with Hodgkins lymphoma, a cancer of the lymph nodes. I went through chemotherapy, lost all my hair and lose 40 days of school. Most sight didnt know I was sick. My teachers helped me linchpining up in class, my friends were as supportive as they could be and I wore a wig to hide my bald head.It was at this point that I dreaded going to school again. I didnt feel like I fit in anymore. I had lost my place, and didnt know how to find it again. Ironically, the nonpareil thing about myself that I was most ashamed of helped me to fall back into place. Towards the end of my treatment, in a small burst of bravery, I unflinching to stop wearing my wig. I declared I didnt care what peck thought, that I didnt want to hide anymore. But inside I was very scared. How would people react to a bald girl?But scorn my doubts, one Monday in April I came to school with only a baseball hat covering my baldness. I had never had so many people stare at me before. They tried to hide it. I could tell they didnt want to be rude -- they just couldnt help themselves. I didnt say anything, for the most part I just looked at the floor. Thats what I did until the end of the day when one girl blurted out what Im sure everyone else was thinking, but was afraid to say, So why did you shave your head? You can imagine my reaction to that one. But, oddly enough, after that one question, things were easier.Over the next three years, I became a distinctive high school kid again.