Evidence of Oral Communication Skills:
Ladies, gentlemen, esteemed faculty members, graduates,
Thank you for having me here today. I stand before you as a late bloomer, a former college dropout, and someone who has battled the often untimely and always unpredictable forces of life. My journey to this podium has been long and arduous, but it’s also been the most rewarding experience of my life. From an outsiders perspective my journey toward my degree seems quite chaotic. It’s strange. I knew where I wanted to be, where I wanted to end up, and what I wanted to achieve, but I couldn’t seem to figure out which way I needed to go in order to get there. In visual terms, instead of a nice straight line from point A to point B, my voyage through college looked like I’d tied a GPS to an angry pig, taught it how to snort cocaine, and then let it loose in a corn maze, to use non-drover terms: there have been a lot of twists and turns.
You see, I started my academic career at OU with all the enthusiasm of a squirrel on a quadruple shot of espresso. I was bright, plucky, and ready to conquer the world, armed with textbooks, highlighters, staples, scissors, crayons just in case coloring was as integral to college as I hoped it would be, and a slightly delusional belief that I would be the next David Sedaris. But then, life happened. And by “life,” in this case, I mean a diagnosis. You see I’ve struggled with depression, and anxiety all my life, but I never knew if something was really wrong with me or if I was just a little odd. The moment my doctor sat me down and delivered the news that I really did have a mental illness, I would’ve given anything to have just been a little bit odd. For those of you unfamiliar with Bipolar 1, it’s a disorder of the brain that causes both extreme depression and extreme mania. It’s also the thing that makes Kanye West so delightful and fun to be around. For the longest time, before that diagnosis, I felt like my brain was a tv with only 2 channels, one was my favorite show ever, the most entertaining piece of media you can imagine, think (Hot Fuzz plus the third season of Community multiplied by to the power of Shrek 2) and the other channel was a documentary codirected by my stepmother and childhood bully entitled “irrefutable evidence that Gabi sucks” which would’ve been bearable if only I’d had control of the remote. It was like the remote was stuck in the grasp of a child with a terrible ADHD-infused attention span (I have ADHD myself, but it’s really more of a garnish on the bipolar platter than it is it’s own separate dish). But thanks to that metaphorical channel flipper, I spent years being thrown from the best channel ever to the worst channel ever at any time, for seemingly no reason, and at times, it did get tempting to just turn off the tv.
To set the scene of my life pre-diagnosis: Imagine, one day, you’re scaling the heights of creativity and self confidence, convinced you are the lab grown love child of Shakespeare, Norm McDonald, Obama, and Beyoncé. The next day, you’re hiding in your bed, in complete despair, convinced that life is utterly worthless and paranoid that the very dust bunnies on your ceiling are plotting against you in tandem with the rest of the world. You’re a failure, you’re a parasite, you’re the worst part of everyone’s day. And then week to week, month to month, or even day to day, the cycle begins anew. And You become Obamayonce McShakespeare all over again. My brain has a non refundable subscription to a service I never signed up for. And let me tell you, the annual fee can be pretty steep.
So, there I was, at OU juggling mania, depression, and what I called a “part-time job” that was really just donating plasma twice a week. And then I had a manic episode that, by comparison, would make the worst of Charlie Sheen’s antics look like the picture of mental health. Dropping out seemed like the logical choice. So I did. I’d lost hope, lost purpose, lost meaning, and given up on any semblance of living a life. By the time I wanted to go back, my parent’s financial situation had taken a turn and finishing at OU was no longer an option.
But then, something magical happened. I got my official diagnosis, got put on proper medication, and I discovered USAO—the University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma: it might not be magical to most people, but this place gave me the financial opportunity to continue my education, so to me it’s one of the happiest places on earth. My Narnia, my hogwarts only with fewer British people and a tighter budget.
At USAO, I didn’t just learn about the nature of electrons and the beauty of poems and sonnets. Through my education here, through coming back to finish my degree, I learned resilience. I learned to never give up on myself, no matter how bad things may seem. The people here have helped me to truly understand that life isn’t a straight line; it’s really more of a doodle—sometimes messy, often nonsensical, but always uniquely yours. And even those among us with the work ethic of Genghis Khan (I’m looking at Emily) we’ve all doodled our way through life at some point or another
It can be a helpful reframing of life. When something goes wrong, you say a the perfectly wrong thing in the weirdest way possible, making the whole party feel unbearably awkward, you fail a test and miss the makeup, when you get a diagnosis that feels life ending, when you get fed up with all of it and go to bitch about it on yikyak only to find someone else has been bitching about you on yikyak, remember those aren’t failures or setbacks, they’re just life, doodling.
So, my fellow students, friends, family, and, from one late bloomer to a blossoming generation of graduates, I want to leave you with the following advice:
Firstly, Embrace Your Inner Squirrel: maintain that zest and zeal for living, stay playful, be a joy: remember that though Life will throw acorns at you, it’s your job not to reject these offerings but to Collect them. Hoard them. Maybe even bury a few for winter, because these acorns of challenge will help grow your resilience, and resilience can be the deciding factor between success and failure. Load up on espresso, let your enthusiasm be your guide. Find what you love, what you truly believe is worth doing, allow it to fill you up. Harness the energy that your passion gives you, and don’t forget to climb trees and leap from branch to branch, taking real chances despite fear of the unknown. Every move you make is a step along the path, and there is no wrong way to reach your destination, even if you go a little nuts along the way.
My 2nd piece of advice is to take control of the remote: this will be harder for some people than others, but since my diagnosis, I’ve learned to take control of my brain. It’s more trainable than you realize and you can create your own reality if you simply curate your mind to be a place that isn’t afraid of change. I’ve discovered so many new channels in the past few years. Know that the world is broader than you can conceive, and you aren’t just the main character of your story: you’re also the writer and director, so make choices mindfully, because you want your movie to be good. To summarize this point with a quote Lisa Simpson, “be nice to your brain, it’s the best friend you’ll ever have”
Thirdly, I would encourage you all to spend some time befriending Your Demons: Yes, Every single one of those pesky inner demons. Invite them over for tea. Ask them about their hobbies. Maybe they’re into knitting or competitive Scrabble. Who knows? You might end up realizing that the demons really aren’t demons at all and find that just because something presents itself in a negative way doesn’t mean there isn’t any good to it at all. Treat your problems with compassionate curiosity rather than judgment. You owe every part of yourself unconditional kindness, not just the parts of you that everyone likes.
My 4th and final piece of advice is perhaps the most critical to my own mental wellness and, in my opinion, is the only real way to get through life: . Celebrate the Small Victories. Did you manage to put on pants today? High-five! Did you survive a group project without throttling your teammates? We’ve all done group comm, so I know you have! That deserves a high five too! Did you finish an assignment? Then stop to bask in the little confetti animation that canvas does when you actually turn something in. Failure is inevitable and unavoidable, but you can shape your life into a series of tiny victories if you so choose. So, raise your metaphorical champagne glass and toast to not tripping over your own shoelaces, and to finally getting your four year degree.
In conclusion, my dear graduates, remember that life is measured not in time, days, months, years, but in adventures, and this experience of being human is only as much of an adventure as you make it. Sometimes you’ll turn the page of life’s book and find a dragon waiting. Other times, it’ll be a fluffy kitten. Either way, keep reading. Keep laughing. And when in doubt, channel your inner Adam’s Sandler, because life is just way more fun when you’re hanging out, cracking wise, and dressing like an off duty player in the WNBA. In other words, you can do serious work, but take yourself seriously at your own peril. It is, in my opinion, the fundamental mistake that breeds misery. If life is a doodle, you are the artist, and your skills at crafting the world around you will only improve through your dedicated practice of living.
Before I leave you, I want to say Thank you, USAO, for believing in late bloomers, dropouts, and anyone who’s ever wondered if their battle is worth fighting. I’m here to tell you, to prove to you by virtue of standing on my own two feet, that it is worth it. much like the consumers of L’oreial hair products, “because your worth it”
And remember, my fellow graduates, the world is your canvas. So go out there and paint it with all the sparkle you can manage, glitter, rainbows, and veritable bird’s nest of ovely shiny things – make it so bright that it reflects your own light back to you, and never forget where you began the art, right at the starting line with everyone else staring down at a completely blank canvas. The image might not be complete yet, but my how far we’ve all come. Congratulations, Class of 2024! Now go forth and doodle your hearts out.
