This past semester, I was asked to speak at the Faculty of Education’s Celebration of Academic Excellence. It was quite an honour to be asked to speak to my peers, and I raked my brain for weeks about what I could possibly say. The prompt that I was given was about challenges that I have faced during my time at university. It was tough-I am lucky to not need to work throughout the year and I have a supportive family behind me. I felt there really isn’t anything that I was challenged with in any way more than my peers.
What I came up with is my own personal journey in becoming more organized and less stressed with life in general. This is something that I have been working on for two years, but was truly inspired this past year by one of my music professors, Dr. Dominic Gregorio, who I had the pleasure of singing under in both Concert Choir and Chamber Singers, as well as learning from in my Choral Conducting class. Dominic’s philosophy is to keep out the negativity and see the good things in what is around us (a great example is when we still had snow at the beginning of April, he said numerous times how beautiful the snow is, and the landscapes we get to see are unique to our province, while we complained about it.)
Below is a copy of my speech. I hope you appreciate some of my journey, and maybe be inspired to make some small change in your life 🙂
*This was uploaded and embedded using Scribd, a really easy and free way of posting documents online 🙂
*Here is a video of “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life”, from Monty Python’s Spamalot
It is the sing-a-long concert version, so no dancing, but the best sound and lyrics!
Musings 
I was there and you really inspired me. You may not have similar stressors in your life as those of us raising families and juggling hundreds of things. But what you said that day gave me the courage to face the remainder of the semester. I decided to focus on the positives and to ignore the things that I had no control over (ie. the weather :). Thanks for taking the time to help your fellow students.
You are most welcome! I am glad it spoke to at least one person! 🙂
Adrienne, I really liked reading your speech. I think something that we often forget is that even if we think it’s not true there is always something that we can help others learn and that we can learn from others. So while you felt like your struggles weren’t ‘as bad’ as your classmates, your experiences and opinions are still valuable! Also, I’ll miss your humour at ESS meetings in the fall. 🙂
Glad you enjoyed it Haleigh!
I will definitely miss being at ESS meetings in the fall! But I look forward to all that you are doing! 🙂