Greetings and good afternoon, I would like to thank the President, Provost, Trustees, Staff, Friends and Family for the opportunity to speak on this grand occasion. But most of all, these words are for us, the College Class of 2010.

As you pack up the last of your belongings today, make sure you do not forget anything. Over our four years here we have acquired a great deal of items, from the screwdriver the school gifted us our freshman year, to the free t-shirts, and in a matter of minutes, our diplomas. Look closely and make sure you do not leave anything you might miss. If I can beg anything of you, don’t forget your tools!

The next part of our journey begins with our tool belt; the selection in the belt should be well rounded to optimize your personal success.  Well-rounded, how many times have we heard those words? What does it mean to you? Well-rounded to me means having more than one tool in your tool belt. Don’t become Peter Avradopolous. Who is Mr. Peter Avradopolous you ask? Well he was the landlord of my teacher, Alane’s house when she was in undergrad, and more so, a repairman that regardless of the task would show up with his tool belt around his waist, withjust one tool, his hammer. It did not matter if it was the furnace, electric, or leaky pipes that needed attention, he brought the only tool he knew. If the hammer did not suffice, Mr. Avradopolous would conclude he was not doing anything wrong, it simply could not be fixed. We’ll never know for sure if a wrench or screwdriver could have made a difference, but I’m betting it would have. When you leave campus today and approach further growing experiences, be sure to carry multiple tools in your belt.

Everyone here has a unique set of tools acquired over the past years. My International Business tool belt looks a little different than that of a Fine Art major. But upon closer inspection, there are a few tools that we have all been given, and those are the ones that can help us fix the most.

The first tool we were given was an open mind. Look around, are your closest friends exactly who you thought they’d be before you arrived here? Or have you found value in someone with a background very different from yours. Once, four years ago as a young cynical liberal from Cleveland, Ohio, I sat down next to a conservative, Petroleum Engineering major, who loved sunshine and paisley. I thought to myself…this isn’t going to work. But it did, and a valuable friendship and support system blossomed.  Push yourself to seek out the different. Go ahead and make yourself a little uncomfortable everyday, you’ll never know what your limits are until you reach them, if there are any limits at all. Conflicts are not resolved by being dogmatic, and progress is made through creative thinking and acceptance.

Put on your engineering hat, as Dr. Lipset, an engineering professor would say. Never hesitate to question and see if there’s a better option. Never settle for okay, when you can achieve remarkable heights. During our time here, I have even heard our class practice using our engineering hats. Why did we have a practice pandemic day freshmen year? How can I attain the intramural champion apparel? What is the best strategy for planning my senior year Doo Dah Day? Critical thinking is crucial. It is constant evaluation that breeds improvement. Question yourself, question others. Hesitate to criticize, do not make your questions accusatory or leading, and you may be surprised what you learn about others, and especially yourself.

Always keep the blue prints of the big picture in your pocket. We are all parts that add up to a whole. We have contributed to the whole of this college with our academic, athletic, and personal involvement. How will you add to the world? Never lose sight of the greater family, organization, or company you are in. Keep the grander picture in your frame, and your values, decisions, and actions will follow. But we have done enough little things to make a big difference. There’s a bridge in the Kroger wetlands now, children at Washington elementary have been mentored, and the westward bound statue at Muskingum Park has been repeatedly cleaned.

In one of your pouches, you will find a globe. We no longer exist in a microcosm; you must consider the macro environment. The world is flat, thanks to workflow software, outsourcing, and digital devices according to Thomas Friedman. It is also hot and crowded now too, he says. At Marietta, it is becoming difficult to teach separate classes for business and international business, as it is practically all the same. I had the opportunity to put my Chinese Language studies to use in Beijing, China this past summer. Going from a school of 1400 to a city of 20 million was, to say the least, a culture shock. The buildings, population and language barrier were overwhelming. I overcame the obstacles I faced by finding comfort in the little things. The beauty of Chinese etiquette, being in a city that never slept, and developing friendships with Chinese students over dumplings made the transition not only bearable, but enjoyable as well. Rather than take away my American ideals, living in China enriched my life and cultural awareness. It a blessing to have international students alongside us in class. When you go out and work alongside someone from a different country, reach out to him or her. Give it the old college try. Learning to respect other cultures with the capacity to work through differences is invaluable.

Next to the globe is your leadership manual. Through our time here we have all developed as leaders. We have all been leaders at some point, whether you were captain of your sports team, leader of your capstone group, or the person who lead your friends down to the Townhouse. Some of us more readily accept leadership positions, are outspoken, and thrive in the spotlight. While others are the unspoken leaders, the ones who bring out the best in others, and at the end of the day the group will say, “we did it on our own” without realizing they have a quiet hero on their hands.

A leader that will always stick out in my mind is my friend Kate. She is an alumna from the class of 2009, a member of Phi Beta Kappa, a former sorority president, and most of all a reverent leader. Through turmoil and stress, I never once heard Kate raise her voice. She chose her words carefully when she spoke, but rather than speak, she listened. Kate lent her ear without judgment. She knew when to just nod and understand, but more so when to offer advice and put things in perspective. She earned everyone’s respect through her actions, never demanded praise, but never hesitated to commend others for their accomplishments no matter how seemingly miniscule. My hope is that the great leaders in our time will embody these characteristics.

Always leave room in your belt for more tools. Remember, you’re not done learning. Constant education is key to success in your life, whether it is work, family, or other personal goals. Continual learning is perhaps the most important tools, as new tools become available, do not be afraid to use them. Who knows, something you might be the greatest at might not even be invented yet. Glade Byron Addams, a thoughtful poet, said, “chase down your passion like it’s the last bus of the night.”

Our tool belts have become heavier in the past four years. With our open minds to see the projects, our engineering hats to analyze with, blueprints of the picture to consider, the globe to reference, leadership skills to guide us, and some empty space to remind us that our collection is never quite complete. With these tools I challenge you to use them everyday, use them to do great things, use them in every little thing you do. Take your tools home with you, take them to your first day of work, or the first day of grad school, just don’t leave them here!

In a show long ago called Boy Meets World, Mr. Feeny told Topanga to “do good” she laughed and replied, “Don’t you mean ‘do well’?” “No” he said to her “I mean do good.”

Class, take your tools with you, and do good.

God Put a Smile on Your Face

The song itself is very middle of the road. The lyrics explore that God gave you things grace, a smile but what you do with them is up to you.

I firmly believe that we are in control of our lives, the only person that can make you happy is you and so on and so forth. Without getting to “preachy” I just want to say that I love this song because it’s sad if you want to be sad but it’s also very empowering.

“Where do we go nobody knows?
I’ve gotta say I’m on my way down
God give me style and give me grace
God put a smile upon my face “

Why I love Cleveland story #1:

Last season I was tailgating in the Pit before the Browns v. Falcons game and had yet to grab tickets. I figured I’d buy a pair from a scalper or watch the game from the Dive Bar on West 6th, my options were endless. An older man with a motorcycle jacket on approached our group and asked if anyone was looking for tickets. I jumped at the chance to buy a pair from him and said I was looking for two tickets.

“Here you go,” he said and handed me two tickets. I hesitated to take them and inquired how much he’d like for them. “Just use them,” was his response. I said thank you and the tickets were mine. Where else could that possibly happen besides Cleveland? The tickets were high up in a great and energetic section and we watched the Browns play hard with our very own eyes. The man who handed us two of his tickets was seated next to us (of course) and every time I got a beer, I got one for him too!

1. Green is my eye color and favorite color too.

2. Sour apple is my favorite flavor.

3. Being busy keeps me happy.

4. Being alone is very difficult for me.

5. This girl is in search of a hobby.

6. When I grow up, I still have no idea who I’ll be.

7. Never has there been a broken bone in my body.

8. My sinuses are ENORMOUS. (ergo, I’m sick a lot.)

9. Modern Family is my favorite sitcom ever.

10. Gwen Stefani pulls off red lipstick better than I ever can.

02 – A picture of you and the person you have been closest with the longest

03 – A picture of the cast from your favorite show

04 – A picture of your night

Night before graduation, spent with loved ones.

05 – A picture of your favorite memory

New Member Formal ’09

06 – A picture of a person you’d love to trade places with for a day

Ke$ha, duh.

07 – A picture of your most treasured item

My Brain!

08 – A picture that makes you laugh

09 – A picture of the person who has gotten you through the most

My baby sister.

10 – A picture of the person you do the most ****** up things with

11 – A picture of something you hate

When people chew ice.

12 – A picture of something you love

Summer rain.

13 – A picture of your favorite band or artist

Old skool No Doubt!

14 – A picture of someone you could never imagine your life without

AMANDA LAY!

15 – A picture of something you want to do before you die

16 – A picture of someone who inspires you

17 – A picture of something that has made a huge impact on your life recently

MY ROOMIE!

18 – A picture of your biggest insecurity

It’s a tie.

19 – A picture and a letter

Dear Karen,
If you’re reading this, it means I actually worked up the courage to mail it so good for me. You don’t know me very well, but if you get me started I tend to go on and on about how hard the writing is for me. This is the hardest thing I ever had to write. There no easy way to say this so I’ll just say it, I met someone. It was an accident, I wasn’t looking for it, I wasn’t one the make it was a perfect storm. She said one thing and I said another and the next thing I knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life in the middle of that conversation.

Now there this feeling in my gut that she might be the one. She completely nuts in a way that makes me smile highly neurotic, a great deal of maintenance acquired. She is you Karen, that’s the good news. The bad news is that I don’t know how to be with you right now, and that scares the shit out of me. Because if I am not with you right now I have this feeling we will get lost out there.

It’s a big bad world full or twist and turns and people have a way of blinking and missing the moment. The moment that could of changed everything. I don’t know what’s going on with us and I can’t tell you should waste a leap of faith on the likes of me. But damn you smell good, like home and you make excellent coffee that has to count for something. Call me!
Unfaithfully yours,
Hank Moody

20 – A picture of somewhere you’d love to travel

London.

21 – A picture of something you wish you could forget

22 – A picture of something you wish you were better at

23 – A picture of your favorite book

24 – A picture of something you wish you could change

25 – A picture of your day

26 – A picture of something that means a lot to you

The love of my life.

27 – A picture of yourself and a family member

Or all of them?

28 – A picture of something you’re afraid of

29 – A picture that can always make you smile

30 – A picture of someone you miss

My cousin!!!!

This is my favorite xkcd.com comic, mostly because it makes me smile but also because the message is simple and relatable.

After recently graduating from college, beginning my career, and moving into my first apartment, I’m learning to compare less. Why would I want to be anything but me? There are a lot of reason we grow up comparing, it starts with toys as a child and follows us to when we’re picking out our coffins. The teachings of status creates more problems then I feel like we are meant to deal with.

I find myself wanting. But for what? Each time I discover myself wanting now, I dig a little deeper and ask myself why. If the core reason isn’t something logical (and more often then not, it isn’t,) I realize it is just something I’m conditioned to want, not something that I personally desire.

“Because we’re grown-ups now and it’s our turn to decide what that means.”

How true! For me, being a grown-up means I can make grilled cheese for dinner two nights in a row, work a meaningful job, sing Spice Girls at the top of my lungs, watch Modern Family ad nauseam, do pilates in my living room, and go to bed by 9 pm if I damn well please.

It’s a good place to be in, and I’m more than happy to take advantage of it. What does being a grown-up mean to you? For so long I felt “grown-up” carried a negative connotation of being serious, zombie-like, stressed, etc. Forget it, I’m redefining growing up, and I know I’m going to like what it means.

I want to be happy. Being happy means respecting myself and others. I possess the greatest urge to create a “To-Do List,” but for what purpose? I know in my heart what makes me happy.

I lose sight of my happiness when I begin questioning the events I’ve suffered in my life. It might be the greatest/most difficult process but I need to learn to accept. Accept without inquiry, accept without doubts and regrets, accept without bitterness. Accept with grace, accept with hope and peace, accept with understanding.

Cherishing all I have rather than lamenting all I have lost sounds lovely to me, like a blue slush puppy on a fierce summer day by the pool. I allow myself to get overwhelmed by mourning what I’m missing out on, my faults, mistakes, and obvious shortcomings. And then I get even more frustrated when I realize I’m not appreciating all that I’ve earned. Instead of showering those that I love with attention, patience, and kindness I tend to ponder the people who have chosen not to be in my life, and count my shameful moments.

Everything in my life is love. How strange it is to write that, considering I truly, earnestly and most of all emptily believed love was not real. I felt love was as deep as blind trust, tangible as jewelry, and as authentic as Taco Bell.

I just had to figure out what love meant to me. It is one of those rare, specially customized items in life. Love is more unique than a fingerprint, yet more universal than the biggest smile you’ve ever seen.

Love is in the embrace of my friends. The sincerity of being wrapped in someone’s arms is unmatchable. No better is there a way to show someone you want them in your life than by physically holding them. No matter the brevity, it’s always comforting.

This is just a sampling of love in my life and I’m so grateful I may say that. Life is not about being broke, the victim or miserable. Celebration is key.

My lack of concern for exact directions has been a boiling point factor for many passengers in my life. Any trip to Coventry, a friend’s house, somewhere I saw once, doesn’t require directions in my mind as long as I know I’m going in the correct general direction. My certainty is wrought with qualifiers, for example; “This is the road we need to be on, I think,” “we should be coming up on the entrance, soon-ish,” “the turn is after a sign that says ‘michael’s hair shoppe’ or something like that.” Yet, time after time, I arrive at my location.

I did not grow up cooking, bake…sure, cooking in general? Not so much. Over the past couple years I’ve done some drive-bys with the culinary arts, like how many different ways can one cook tubed ground beef, the precise amount of water to add for the correct cheese to water ratio in easy mac, and a few staple appetizers to bring to parties (killer buffalo chicken dip, veggie pizza, etc.)

Most recently, I began my cooking adventure this summer. Nice steaks were on sale at a local grocery store. I had the house/kitchen/grill to myself and some excellent dinner company on the way. I thought, I will grill steaks tonight. How hard can grilling be? At my house despite the fact there’s three or four grills, you’ve got two options, charcoal or gas. Charcoal seems far less intimidating to me. After putting charcoal in the grill, trying to light it, trying to wait for it to heat up, and remembering that patience is not my greatest asset, I white-flagged that project and moved onto the gas grill. No worries, I know how to use one, I accidently almost lost my eyebrows to lack of gas grill knowledge, and you don’t make that mistake twice.

I rub the steak in some steak rubbing stuff and on the lit grill it goes. Google had instructed on proper steak cooking and I put the lid down and went inside to prep the spinach salad and potatoes. I came out, flipped the steak and the underside had turned a mouth-watering meat color with darkened  grill lines. I was pretty pleased. I then sat on the deck of the house, with a glass of red wine and a good book. My sun dress fanned out around me and I breathed in the cooling summer air. After some time (not much) I tapped the top of the steak and deemed it cooked. I put it on a plate to soak it’s juices up before I cut it. My dinner partner arrived just in time and we sat down to the most delicious summer steak I accidentally cooked.

I’m a firm believer that as long as I point myself in the correct direction and start moving, life will work out. Fretting over details, like exact measurements or which streets you’ll pass just complicates. The few times I’ve followed every word on a recipe it’s been exhausting, and by the time the food is (over)made, I have lost my appetite. There is no need to fret over every little thing, especially if it’ll keep you from enjoying whatever it is you’re trying to achieve.

Here’s to winging it.

These two people are Daniel Ruiz from Crash and Karen Smith from Mean Girls.

Daniel is a locksmith who, because of his heritage and his tattoos, is pin-holed into whatever stereotype others desire. Karen is sweet high school who gets “passed over” because she has a reputation.

How often do we not take the chance to know people because they’re pinhole has already been made? It is instances like these that keep people from moving outside of their comfort zones, not because they don’t yearn to but because we don’t let them.

There’s a huge pressure to reinvent yourself after high school, after college, during your mid-life crisis, etc. Why do we have to be in these pivotal moments to be allowed to reinvent? If you have supportive people in your life that want the best for you, they will be able to let go of the niches you’ve filled and encourage you to grow into the person you want to be.

We miss out on a substantial amount of relationships, experiences, and opportunities for change by being narrow minded. Daniel Ruiz is, in actuality, a loving, considerate, and gentle father. He is an individual that works hard, values honesty, and makes the best of what he’s got. The store owner that comes after him, in a hurry to blame him for his ransacked store, did not see Daniel as he was, he saw Daniel as he wanted to see him. In his mind, the store owner created a persona for Daniel that was not only inaccurate, but almost caused the father his life…or even worse, his daughters.

Karen find happiness by the end of Mean Girls. She is last seem cheerfully reporting the weather. Throughout the movie she is constantly passed over. Karen is conditioned to be ditzy, and provide comic relief, she could be more but why would she? That’s her place, and that’s the person her friends want her to be.

There is an injustice to both of these characters as a result of our own selfishness. We allow others to be people they’re not to fill blanks in our stories, friendship circles, and lives.

It would be easy to say we are all victim to this crime. Maybe we are? Despite any of that, the only part of this messed up fact of life that we have any control over is how we see ourselves. If you don’t want to be who you are, change. To think you can completely change overnight is impractical but by taking baby steps and not allowing others to define you (even if just in your head) a difference will be made. Daniel and Karen are both tragically innocent personas, at the mercy of the ignorant minds around them. No one here is ever truly innocent or victimized, but we are empowered with free will.

1. Premier of Top Chef: All Stars…it’s a good show and some of my FAVORITE chefs are back for redemption.
2. Dinner with Blerin on Thursday. For someone who I like so much also being in the Greater Cleveland area, I haven’t seen her at all. So on Sunday I stomped my feet, pouted, and texted her. Low and behold…it was super easy to arrange something.
3. Going grocery shopping. I’ll be out on my own soon and I haven’t truly grocery entirely shopped for myself in at least three years. I’m looking forward to coupon cutting, deal scoping, and line waiting.
4. Organizing my files. Over the past 6 or so years I’ve been compiling crap in manilla folders in what now takes up two filing crates. Just yesterday I clean up envelopes, stationary, and cards. Bank stuff is at bat, with school stuff on deck, and dvds in the hole.
5. READING. It has been so long since I really sat down and read and I moved a lamp to my bed stand, and I read a bit before I fell asleep last night. I left my laptop on my desk and it was strangely refreshing. So much so, I might just keep it up all week. I might even finish a book. What’s happened? I used to go through a book a week. I just haven’t felt inspired with any of my reading choices lately. Any suggestions?

“Our lives improve only when we take chances – and the first and most difficult risk we can take is to be honest with ourselves. -Walter Anderson”

Recently, I had more than just a trying day. I had a “my world just fell apart in front of my very own eyes,” day. I’m living in the aftermath of a no good, horrible, very bad day. Much to my surprise, the sun rose the next morning, the world kept spinning, and yes, I was even still breathing.

No matter what happens in life, there’s a few things I’ve learned to hold onto. If I didn’t grip to these notions with the last straining fibers of belief in my body I can’t promise I’d be the person I am today. I imagine I’d be somewhere comparable to under a rock.

My beliefs (as they currently stand):

1. People are inherently good. The general population wants to do good. Distractions, temptations and bad habits are constantly bringing out the worst in others. Forgive them, and be the light they need to see their way back onto the path they intended to be on.
2. You can’t change the past, so don’t dwell on it. This is the hardest thing for me to accept. I hold others accountable to their past mistakes, slip-ups and shortcomings long-after anyone should. I have a hard time letting go. It’s key though. People tend to live up/down to expectations. If you don’t forgive them of their faults, and are simply waiting for them to mess up again…you’ll get your wish. Expecting better of someone leads to the best possible results. The most deep-setting, hurtful/motivating comment made to me was, “I know you’re better than this.” I was.

I’m at a loss for now…though the list obviously continues past two! Stay posted