oliviatamccue

Over recent years, weekend is gradually turning into the needed break and get ready for another week.   For this special Friday to Sunday, I need rest more from the weekdays that follow.

On Friday May 30, the Chinese evening school, I am serving on the board, has its graduation ceremony at the age of 50. This is a graduation with celebrities attending, graduate students speaking, video showing of history, and students performance. The celebrities were not famous movie stars or household names; they are mayors or school administrators. The speech of the graduate students is refreshing and original, in their confession of not paying attention to teachers’ lectures, or in their humor of the language helping them to meet new (girl) friends in China, or in their gratitude to the teachers and school.  There are more interesting things to do on Friday evenings; the graduate students (and their family) are those coming to the school on Friday evening consistently for over 10 years. The video is produced by my daughter and it feels magical when the 3-minute clip gets the full attention of these hundreds of parents and students.  Classes of all grades put up performance from singing songs, reciting poems, magic show, drama, or group aerobics. Preparing kindergarten or elementary grade students to perform requires lots of energy and crowd management skills as these cuties have different priorities and worlds of view from adults.  Motivating the upper grade students is a more strenuous mental challenge for the teachers and students.  The effort really shows in turning each of the performances into entertaining, unique and very special moments.   The 2 hour+ ceremony concludes with parents joining the students in singing gratitude to their parents and cake cutting – how fitting with piety and food such a central theme for Chinese heritage.

Could there be a bigger change in gear from a graduation to an outdoor concert of Barry Gibb the next evening?  It was after midnight when we arrived home after the concert.

Sunday was the 50th anniversary dinner for the school.  We start out planning it in a small scale, and 15 tables of reservation sound optimistic.  Over 200 guests show up, taking up 24 tables.  As we plans for the flavors, the menu, the decoration and the event rundown, it feels like a wedding banquet. The effort is all the worthwhile to see the guests relish the past years, enjoy old friends’ reunion, becoming silent as they watch videos of school history, and lively in games and pictures.  50 years for any establishment are not easy. In my assistance to create video clips to represent the school years, I spend hours and hours of time walking down the memory lane of the school, through the audio clips of past principals, and through the pictures over the year.  I stand in gratitude of the adaptations, changes and dedications of so many over the years, to get us to this special evening.

Graduation marks the beginning of summer holiday for many 8^th graders. I did not have my own middle school graduation.  I did not remember any speeches in the middle school graduation of my daughter; attending my son’s at the same school, three years later, bring some moments back.

On a mild summer day, it has the same outdoor setting as before – a stage under a green tent on the school lawn, and the natural linings of tall trees in different shade of green at the back, coupled with the audio content from the band team of the 7th grader.  It is simple and beautiful.  I arrive half an hour early, and end up in the third last row of the seating area; it was a lesson learned to arrive early, yet it is still not enough. The ceremony begins officially with the students walking from the back to the front rows, in their dress code from formal suite to more casual pants, all respectful.  In an aisle seat, I have a close look of everyone, and the accompanying thrill that these hundreds of

students would shape our future.  A few graduate students deliver their speeches; I like how one student says that his generation needs to solve the problems created by this and past generations; and how another student shares his learning from the movie of Star War. Their air of confidence impresses the most.  Kids in United States are not seasoned with much hardship in their first many years, they have a rosy picture of what the future can offer them, and serve as reminders life is more worthwhile with passion, with contribution and with joy.  Certificate presentation came after the speeches.  Every audience waits for the few seconds of his/her loved one to walk up and down the stage.  Most families put their hands together for each student. It is a lengthy session with some intermittent shouts from the audience for their own favorite friends and families.  The principal concludes nicely with a short quote.

I always enjoy the present moments at the graduation, the emotions, and the refresher of the life journey from the eyes of the youth.  It would take another graduation to realize again that I don’t remember much of the speeches.