Author: Jimmy Yin
Finally, our big day arrived. We came one by one wearing our graduation outfits, walking from the entrance to our seats while the graduation music was playing. We were laughing and talking to each other about our future just before walking into the auditorium. But when we stepped into the auditorium, we naturally became serious because this was one of the most important times of our lives, the high school graduation ceremony. With the sound of cameras flashing, every parent wants to use their phone or camera to record this moment. With the sound of the last student sitting down, the graduation ceremony finally began.
After the graduates sat down, the auditorium played the Chinese and Canadian national anthems. Then was time to introduce the guests. Guests who came to our ceremony included an officer from the Canadian government, the director from Baihui Education, our principals on both the Chinese and BC side, and other officers. Although we hadn’t met many of them before, with their selfless care and concern, we graduated successfully.
The graduation ceremony officially began with the speeches from students, parents and teachers. Our first speech was from Michelle. She talked about the relationship between our choice of university and what that means to our future. The thing I felt most touched by was how she said “in university, you are free now. You can do what you like. Universities are not the same as our junior, senior high school or even kindergarten. You need to have a plan for yourselves and you need to follow it without anybody’s help. It’ all on you now.” What Mr. Berg and Mr. Hazel said is those suggestions they can give to us. The speech given by a students’ parent was filled with love and let us know that parents are most concerned about us in the world, though we don’t always notice it.
After those speeches, it was time to play our gratitude videos to our parents. And then we realized it was pretty embarrassing to play this video in front of all the people in the auditorium. However, all of us are very thankful to our parents for letting us join the BC program.
Next were the talent shows. The first performance was Jay Zhou’s “Dandelion’s Promise” from Jack Xu and Lychee Zhou in Grade 12 which means our lives in Luwan are lively and colorful, followed by the grade 10 students who played a folk song.
The average scholarships for our graduates are ~$11,000. In addition, more than 75 percent of the students will go to the world’s top 100 universities. All of this is thanks to the careful teaching from our school teachers, the full range of support from parents and our hard work.