Graduation Speech

“A Burning Desire”
By: Andrea Borroel


When I was a little girl I always heard “you can do everything you want” or “you can be  anything you want to be”. I didn’t believe this back then, because most of the time when we are little our parents tell us “you can’t do this” or “don't do that” and we heard many “no’s”. Now that I am much older, I believe it. I believe that people will accomplish everything they want, if they put their mind to it.

One day I was at home, laying in bed, listening to old songs; and looking up at the ceiling. Then I started thinking about my future, and I started to think about all the decisions I’ve made.  Thinking about my future scared me, because I had no idea what I wanted to do, and because I realized I was making bad choices. For the rest of the week I kept thinking about my future.

Then one cold rainy day, after school I was waiting for my mom to pick me up by the front office. Then I see Mr. Bertoletti, my 7th grade science teacher, and he told me something like this, “ You are a wonderful student, you can do amazing things when you want to.” And he said that he believes I will be a successful person.

His words ran through my mind, and what I was thinking was that he was right. I can accomplish what I want, my parents did and so will I. My parents prospered through hard times, and they are successful. I will be successful like them too. The day I talked to Mr. Bertoletti, he helped me realize this: people will accomplish what they want if they put their mind on it. This idea helped me get to this stage, and in the future it will help me get to extraordinary places.

I know that things might not work out the way I want them to sometimes, but I won’t give up because I will have the support of people like Ms. Hauer, Mr. Bertoletti, My family, and my 2 best friends, Vivian and Alexis because they were there through rough times.

Many people in this world live each day with a frown on their face. They think that life is unfair and that we will all die miserable. I disagree with these type of people because life is what you want it to be. You are the only one that is in control of your life, and you are the only person responsible for your decisions, and you will either succeed or fail, but this is all based on your decisions. This is why I believe that people will accomplish what they want, and all they need is a burning desire.

The Boy on the Wooden Box

My essential question was: What was life after the Holocaust? In the book The Boy on the Wooden Box it talks about Leon’s life inside a camp. Leon was nearly 10 when the Germans arrived in Poland, the Germans took many of his rights and then abruptly sent him to a ghetto. The author states that in the ghetto they, “...were packed like sardines into too few rooms, but those rooms were in normal apartment buildings.(113)”Leon was later transferred to a labor camp, and there he was separated from his family. Schindler helped his family by taking them with him and then setting them free. After Leon left the camp, he went back to Krakow and then moved to the U.S. In the article “ “ , it is about a woman named Ms.Fahidi and she tells her story of what happened during and after the Holocaust. According to the article, “Ms. Fahidi lost 49 relatives in the Holocaust, including her mother and sister Gilike, then 11. Her last glimpse of them was on the ramp at Birkenau, where arriving Jews were sorted…” She lost most of her family and was alone after she was liberated. Unlike Leyson, Ms.Fahidi was sent to the camp when she was 18, and she recalls that the camp was not ready yet. After a long time of being alone she found out she had a distant aunt and uncle, and she went to live with them. She later met her future husband through Marximism and wasn't alone anymore. Then officials were looking for survivors so they could ask for forgiveness, so in 2003 Ms.Fahidi went back to Auschwitz. After her visit she decided to write a memoir , ““Because much repeats in history, and if you don’t know what happened and what consequences it has, then it can happen very quickly again.” She found out that a guard from the camp was going to be tried, and she hoped that justice could win.