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Principal’s Address to the Class of 2024

Damian Bacchoo
7 min readJun 24, 2024
Vector Art from Author

“How’s your grad speech going?”

I’m not sure what other people do when they are asked to write a speech, but I find it takes way more time than I have, way more coffee and wine than is healthy, and way more stress and anxiety than I ever expected (even though it was the same last year)!

As I procrastinated through this year’s speech writing, I reflected on a couple of things.

  1. However painful writing a grad speech might be, it’s a hell of a lot easier than sitting for exams.
  2. AI is still not able to write the damn thing for me!

I finally settled on a theme for this year’s speech, my inspiration drawn from a quote from a classic Rumi quote that I stumbled across:

It’s your road, and yours alone. Others may walk it with you, but no one can walk it for you.”

I thought it would be a great theme for a graduation speech, and here is what I did with it…

Closing Address to the Graduating Class of 2024

Good morning. My name is Damian Bacchoo. I’m the high school principal for the class of 2024, and I am honoured to have the closing words today.

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Damian Bacchoo

I’m Damian, a high school principal, and occasional blogger with interests in leadership, culture, wellbeing, mental health, and Star Wars!