Phreshly Squeezed

Some time ago, one of my friends asked if commencement was really worth it. And by that, he meant if it was worth the money I was spending to fly home and the time I would be spending (which could be allocated toward studying for a midterm and writing an essay). Instead of giving a straight answer, I could only laugh. How could I explain something I hadn’t thought about a lot or even knew how to explain?

I can be clear about this: I’m not going to commencement solely for the fact that I want to be on that stage and graduate with everyone. It’s not that at all.

The first two years of my high school career were spent being quiet and shy. After first impressions and everything of that like, teachers already have their ideas about you and very little can be done to change that. I suppose when grade eleven started, I began to change, but it wasn’t incredibly noticeable. There were certain characteristics that became a little more prominent in my personality – I became more goal oriented and I learned to fight for what I wanted. And by fight, I mean the ability to persevere to achieve what it is I want. Senior year was incredibly different. I felt that I could achieve a lot more than what was being given to me (i.e. opportunities). Learning from a textbook isn’t really for me, so when I wanted to learn about something or to try something, I would make a club and get people to interact with me and teach me. Truth be told, I had very little idea what I was doing half the time. And sometimes, I think people knew this.

I had people talk about me saying how I could never achieve all of this, how my ideas would fail, that I was taking on way too much, and that I would just go crazy. In a way, I guess you could say I lacked support and faith from peers, and sometimes, teachers. This lack of faith and belief actually pushed me to do better and to do more. If opportunities did not exist, I learned to make them from whatever resources I had and with what little help I had. Complaining wasn’t an option. There was always a way to achieve what I wanted or a way to achieve something even better than what I had aspired. What wound up happening was that I helped make the business department shine a little, some classes learn a little more about what was going on in the world, the school a little more culturally involved with ethnic foods, and some other things. I’d like to think that I made some sort of impact, even if it was only a couple persons.

I have to admit that high school was never about academics for me. If you asked me where I stood in my graduating class in terms of grades, I could tell you that I was in the top ten percent of my class, but I could also tell you that I never tried incredibly hard to get these grades. I wouldn’t say that they came naturally, but that they came with less effort than my extracurricular activities. One of the greatest lessons that I took away from school was that everyone can have a positive impact on your life, it depends on how you take the criticisms and the praises. And also, remember that opinions can always change, you just have to prove yourself (kind of like the arguments that I am posing and needing to develop in my cultural foundations essay!).

So while I thank those who believed in me, I have to thank those who had a whit of faith in me. And for you all, whether you’ve implicated in your words to me that you don’t believe in me or whether you’ve told me that I have the potential to achieve great things, I will be on that stage to show you what I have done with the opportunities that I have made.

Last weekend, I attended the Ethical Fashion Show held near the Louvre. Not only was I surprised that the admission was considerably low for such an event (6 Euros for students, 10 for regular admission) but I was also surprised by the turnout. The turnout was equivalent to that of this year’s Toronto’s Green Living Show (mind you, the Toronto Transit Commission had a strike, which stopped a lot of crowds from coming). I guess France’s superhero isn’t the eco-conscious crusader.

Some of the booths intrigued me. I was more in search of clothing that were using organic materials, but there were young companies making use of other ethical approaches, such as equity, social projects, and the like. Of course, I would’ve been more impressed if they also made use of natural materials, which quite a few of them did. The organic and natural materials though, were lacking a bit in diversity. As an option to be eco-friendly, most of the exhibitors chose the approach of using organic cotton or to use silk for their clothing.

The fashion show for sportswear and urban wear was meant to be the highlight of this exhibition. And it was. For the most part, I thought the models did an excellent job representing the clothing line that they were wearing.