Brandon Lung’s Year 13 graduation speech

Hi everyone, I hope everyone’s been having a good evening so far. I’m sure a few of you may have seen me around school, but my name’s Brandon, I’ve been here at ICHK since year 7 and the primary school since year 1. Let me first clarify that I am NOT this class’s valedictorian, I’m speaking because the year 12s figured I had enough experience being an “actor”, acting out monologues, creating still images and crossdressing to make a hopefully decent speech on a night like this. I decided to stand before you all; my teachers, the parents and my lifelong friends and classmates, who by the way are all dressed beautifully (for the most part), to give a final toast for all the times we’ve shared at this school.

As you all know, the class of 2019 is by far the most outstanding group of individuals to have ever studied in ICHK/ the WORLD. Exhibit A. Our sporting achievements, we are notorious for dominating every single sporting event to have ever been hosted by ICHK. Rugby tournaments and leagues? Us. Basketball? Us. The volleyball court last year? NO ONE BUT US. There was also this year’s sports day but I think we did more modelling than running to be honest.

We’ve always been the class that could never sit still, always needing to make something out of every small experience, which is a trait I know we will continue to have in the future.

Now moving onto our artistic achievements, I mean, (gesture at self) if this isn’t enough to convince you. Every single showcase since 2012, we’ve been looking down, slow mo-ing, moving chairs, lifting up people and shushing until Mr Greenall eventually told us that we were too big and ugly to dance onto his show. And of course, who could forget the countless drama productions that I’ve led, *cough Ahem, I mean WE’VE led.

All together, we are the year that set the standard, we’ve all played our own parts in making this school as great as it is now, the real question is what achievements are we going to try to gain in the future.
 Life outside of ICHK won’t be easy, but that’s mainly because we’ve grown up in such a caring community. I’ve grown up in this school together with three of my close friends, Sam, Henry and Charlotte from year 1 all the way up till now. Mr Newton has done an amazing job at inspiring students to think independently, to break past their limits and self-expectations, as well as you know, sell “growth mindset”, so I think we should all give a round of applause for everything he’s done to make ICHK what it is now.

The past two years have been quite a road for us to trek through, I mean obviously it wasn’t supposed to be easy but I think we can all agree that if it wasn’t for the guidance, the kindness, and the overall love we received from the teachers throughout these past few years, none of us could’ve made it all the way here. You guys know I can’t just thank the principal. So starting with Ms Lai and Mr Clarke, thank you for taking us scared IB kids and raising us to be mature, determined, unbreakable men and women prepared to move on to the next stage of our lives. Thank you Mr Rees for being so patient with us and working so hard to guide all 23 of us through our TOK essays.

Thank you Ms Lee, Ms Loges and Ms Bailey, for teaching us how to truly enjoy literature and making sure that I wouldn’t not make any grammatical mistake heres . Thank you Mr Lam Mr Holland, Ms Johnston and Mr Holden for not only making maths a period to look forward to but also for inspiring me to want to grow up to be like you. Thank you Ms Leung, Mr Arriaga, Ms Cresp, Ms Luk and Ms Tsao for being so creative in finding ways to make language class both understandable and enjoyable. Oh wait right, yeah, you too Ms Zhang.

Thank you Mr Chan and Mr Blain, for being patient enough to handle us loud, energetic, obnoxious teenagers and only punishing us by making us squat and do laps until we couldn’t stand. Thank you Mr Edwards, Ms Rines, Mr Kay and Ms Lai for bringing out the scientists in all of us, inspiring the futures of most of us here. Thank you Mr Parker for introducing Ultimate Frisbee to the school, giving some of us another sport to love and make memories by. Thank you Mr Zawacki, Mr Duncombe and Ms Chan for helping us psychology students push through the IAs and the course in general. And finally, I want to thank Ms Davies, Ms Cook and Mr Greenall for helping us discover ourselves and for developing our creative sides. So once again can we please give a round of applause to these kind-hearted, loving and hardworking teachers that have left us with lessons that we’ll use for the rest of our lives.

I know I’ve already said a lot of thank yous but I want to take this chance on stage to personally thank Mr Greenall myself, for being a role model to me in more ways than he will ever know, for being my mentor ever since I first stepped into the PA room, for supporting me no matter what choices I’ve made. Although I may be disappointing him by not aiming my future towards drama specifically, I want you to know that I’m going to use everything you’ve ever taught me, what all of you have taught me, in what hopefully will be my future as a teacher.

Now that all the sappy thank yous are over, I want to speak directly to my fellow classmates. It’s over guys, we’ve done it, the past seven years have finally flown by and now we can all prepare to head to university. As much as I want to emphasise how glad I am to finally escape high school, I can’t help but reminisce on the times we’ve had together. From the weird things we’d do to pass the time in the common room, to the night we spent messing with the school rooms, making it arguably the best graduation prank pulled in ICHK. It’s weird you know? It’s weird for me to think that I won’t be seeing you guys in September, weird to think that I won’t have a touch rugby team to play with, weird to think that I don’t have a school production to be hopeful for, and weird to think that I won’t be seeing you guys in a long long time. We’ll have all night to celebrate so I’ll try to keep this short. My mum used to always ask me, what do you want to do with your life and what are you going to make of your future? Every time I answered teacher. I would always think back to you guys, knowing that if I became a teacher, I would have the power to inspire students to become people as creative, as funny, and as special as all of you. I’m gonna miss you guys. Thank you.