Over the past four years, there’s one thing that I’ve playfully been called time and time again by all my friends - foreign. If I got a question wrong in class, someone would say, “Don’t worry, she’s foreign.” If I forgot that we had a quiz in AP Bio, the excuse would be, “She’s foreign, take it easy on her.” If I called my house and started speaking Bosnian, I heard, “GUYS, LISTEN! She’s being foreign!!!”
Though my family and I are also relatively Americanized, the Bosnian culture that my parents and entire extended family grew up in carried over to all the places we’ve lived. This culture has single-handedly been the biggest and best influence on me throughout my high school years.
My parents didn’t have all the opportunities that going to school in America gives a person, so from a very young age, I understood the importance of learning. This mindset became a part of who I was, and I carried it with me throughout high school.
Coming from a very different culture, my perspective on many things varies from the people’s around me. Being able to compare my perspective with others has consistently taught me so much about the world and the people in it. First-handedly seeing how my culture varies from American culture has made me more inclined to keep learning and keep discovering.
There’s nothing more satisfying to me than making my family proud. It’s impossible for me to fully comprehend what my successes throughout high school have meant to them. My parents say that they used to think of America as something out of a fairy-tale book, something so great that they couldn’t imagine it - and now their first child is getting a high school diploma here.
Being a different nationality has shaped how meaningful the things I learned in high school are to me. Learning about various historical events helped me relate various events to the war my family went through; reading Shakespeare’s plays showed me how united the people of the world are with our desires and expectations; and doing impossible math problems year after year after year after year made me go slightly insane (you don’t actually have to be foreign for that to happen to you).
The most important thing I got out of high school was realizing that I’m blessed to be able to look at everything through different eyes. It has made me a passionate and ambitious person who wants to see the world and spread human compassion.
My senior message in the yearbook is one of my favorite quotes of all time that could not apply better to my situation: “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I - I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.” -Robert Frost
I plan to continue to live my life like that, and to enjoy anything I encounter along the way.
On another note, I want to thank all of the teachers I’ve had, especially the handful that have guided me through so much more than just school work. I also want to thank my guidance counselor for assisting me throughout my most stressful times in school!
And of course thank you to all my friends who have gone through these crazy four years with me. And a very special thank you to all my friends and chaperones from the Greece and Italy trip for giving me the best experience I had in high school!
Good luck, class of 2011 - I hope we meet again.
