To my fellow students, esteemed faculty, and treasured guests, welcome. You may be surprised to see me standing up here today, as I am not enrolled in your class and have never met any of you, but I read the speech that the guy who was supposed to be up here wrote, and believe me, he really put the “dick” in “valedictorian.” Am I right? Anyway, I have a few words of wisdom that I would like to impart to you now as you begin the next chapter in your lives.
The most important piece of advice I can give you is to start a band. Seriously, it will give you something to brag about until you die, and even if you are really terrible (and you will be), it will be the most fun you will ever have. Whatever else you do is irrelevant, because even if you only practice two or three times in your friend’s basement (and by “friend” I mean “person you met on Craigslist”), as long as you come up with a cool name for your band, it totally counts.
Also, there are going to be people in your life who tell you that you are a graduate of the year “Twenty Eleven.” Do not listen to them. If you want to say “Two Thousand Eleven,” you go right ahead and say it. Yes, you will make those other snooty people really mad, and they will remind you about “Nineteen Eleven” and how no one called it “One Thousand Nine Hundred Eleven,” which we can all agree sounds stupid, but hold your ground! We also didn’t say “One Thousand Nine Hundred Three” but we did say “Two Thousand Three.” We started a precedent. It’s too late now. Feel free to say “Two Thousand” all the way to the year “Two Thousand Ninety Nine,” but then switch over to “Twenty One Oh One,” because otherwise it will get weird again. Both ways should ve acceptable. But basically, do what you want, and don’t listen to pretentious people on blogs who think they know everything.
Now some of you might be heading out to find jobs, while others of you might be continuing your education. This is very smart of both of you. Those of you getting jobs are going to be making money, which is very important. Those others of you are going to be spending thousands and thousands of dollars in order to obtain a degree which may or may not make you more money in the future. Gambling is totally legal here in the U.S.A. and I totally encourage it. I myself spent over $60,000 total on education, and that was after tons of grants and scholarships. Currently I make pizza for minimum wage. But this will not happen to YOU! YOU are talented and special and lucky! For those of you not planning on getting jobs OR continuing their education, tell your parents I said hi!
Now, here’s some advice that will truly serve you well, as many of you seem to have a problem with this concept. Wearing clothes in the correct size makes you look more attractive! Crazy, I know. But believe me, wishing you were a size 6 does not make you a size 6, and even though you can squeeze into the clothes, you do not look good with half your stomach hanging out over your jeans, or stuffed into that dress like a sausage. I know putting on that size 8 or size 10 (or, gasp, size 12) will be damaging to you emotionally, but trust me, you will actually look better. We can’t see what size your clothes are, only if they fit well. Please, do the world a favor and look good.
The last thing I want to tell you all is to eat really terribly. Your metabolism is going to catch up with you sooner or later, and you will spend all your time and money and energy trying to lose weight and trying to eat healthy and trying to remember to go to the gym and watching “The Biggest Loser” and thinking about the days when you were able to eat a pint of Ben & Jerry’s every night for dinner, with a pizza for dessert at midnight. Ah, good times. You might as well enjoy yourselves right now, while you still can.
Well, thank you for your time. Although I do not know any of you personally, we had some great times together, and I will be sure to Facebook all of you later, so that you can know what I am eating for dinner at any given time, and so we can say happy birthday to each other without actually having to call or meet up. Now let’s go throw our hats up in the air and high five each other! Yeah!
Blatherskyte ROCKS!