Kristine Ann Villanueva
To our outstanding guest-speaker, Dr. Florentina R. Lizano, firm yet caring director Mr. Antonio Punzalan, ever-calm and patient directress Mrs. Angelita Punzalan, dynamic principal Mrs. Joy Mercado, kind and warm faculty and staff, ever-supportive parents, gratified fellow graduates, Good Evening! A Chinese Proverb goes : To get through the hardest journey, we need to take only one step at a time, but we must keep on stepping.
First and foremost, I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who was very helpful along this step in my journey, this step called high school life. I would like to thank ADT Montessori School, my parents, relatives, and friends, you are the reason why I am here tonight, standing in front of you with much honour and humility. I am grateful for this moment.
Second, may I share with you this step in my journey, high school life.
As the only girl and the eldest in the family and a stereotyped achiever since childhood, there were a lot of expectations from me. Being the eldest isn’t that easy. You have no ‘ate’ or ‘kuya’ to rely on and you have to handle a lot of pressure at times in school and at home. I always thought an eldest needed to be very careful with her words and actions as people expect you to be flawless. You have to perform well in all the activities given, always give your best and be competitive because that is what’s expected. I thought I was born to comply with what everyone wanted. In short, I have to please everyone almost at all times. And because of that, I have come to believe that I can stand all by myself and live only for the awards. So I missed out the chance to enjoy life with the people around me; to experience a life other than academics and competitions.
It did get kind of tiring to spend life doing those things. But when I stepped at ADT, I found the better meaning of achievement and learned the greater value of those around me. It was in the