Ok. Hello, this is Peter. Can you hear me? All right, great. I think Adobe is still haunting me there. Before I begin, I want to thank Dr. Almanzar for his great introduction. Thank you Father Rapaport for your invocation. Thank you, Dr. Sanford for being here with us today to give your commencement address. Thank you Mrs. Lengyel for your continued leadership of this great school. Thank you Mr. and Mrs. Rowles, Mrs. Powers, Mr. Buyarski for getting all of this organized. And of course, and I would also like to thank the rest of the faculty here for their great work teaching us and leading us through high school. You did it through blood, sweat and tears.
You have finally made it through these 18 years and not just that, but you made it through these four years of high school and you never gave up even when you were dealt a bad hand of cards you persevered and here you are now, what a fantastic accomplishment, but that's enough about the parents. We are now as graduating seniors entering what is possibly one of the most important stages of our lives, whether we are going to college, to continue our academic studies entering the workforce or taking a gap year. We are all being let loose on the world, so to speak.
And we must now take the knowledge taught to aspire, teachers and parents and make sure how to responsibly use that knowledge on page wisdom taught to us by our parents and teachers at Kolbe and apply it to our new experiences and encounters on the topic of our education, Kobe has taught us and prepared us for this next step in our lives better than could ever be hoped for.
We have all learned the arts, humanities, sciences, languages. But I think what is even more important is how Kobe has taught us to use this knowledge in service to God instead of to ourselves. To give an example in Canto 26 of Dante's inferno. Dante meets Ulysses in the circle of fraudulence. Unlike Homer's version of the story where Ulysses goes back to Ithaca Ulysses tells Dante that he did not actually end up returning.
Instead, he let his ambition cloud his vision and he wanted his ambition for knowledge, his ambition for knowledge, clouded his vision and he incited his crew on to glory, falling short just near the end. Ulysses fatal flaw was not so much his desire for knowledge, but rather his selfish intention for that knowledge and what he sacrificed for it.
Knowledge is not a bunch of collectors items where you have to collect them all, just for the sake of knowing it. Instead it should be sought so that it should be shared with others applied to one's own life and most importantly used in a way that gives glory to God. That is what Kobe has taught us in tandem with the arts sciences, humanities, Kolbe has given us a wealth of education and a responsibility to use it productively and virtuously.
Although to be perfectly honest, I'm not sure how to responsibly use my knowledge of memorizing the names of Mrs. Powers calculators. As for the community aspect of the school, we have had the opportunity to participate in the wonderfully weird fun and sometimes glitchy community of Kolbe Academy from the discussion boards with thousands of posts on them to the various clubs, official or unofficial where we made friends and memories, whether you've been here for eight years or one Kolbe's effect on all of us is undeniable and I don't think there is a community online or otherwise quite like Kolbe and it is that unique experience that draws us all together and makes it such a unique school. It is a set of experiences and memories that we share and will likely hold for the rest of our lives. I for one fondly remember the 10 to 15 minute rant from one Jose Trujillo.
And I would like to say sorry to anyone who has not heard one of them because it's truly a popcorn worthy event. Another one I'm sure all Kobe students can relate to is that we have all procrastinated. I mean, come on. And as a result of that procrastination, we've probably submitted an assignment five minutes before the due date. You know, all that adrenaline, I mean, come on.
All of you, you, you, I know you've done it for sure. Don't, don't lie to me. but to be perfectly honest, I think if you haven't done that, you're not eligible to graduate as a Kolbe student. but I'm not critiquing either because ultimately, that is an experience fairly unique to Kolbe Academy and that all of us as seniors can connect with. Even though Kolbe is an online school, the community is so friendly and sociable that it doesn't feel online.
I think last night was actually the perfect example of this at the social. You would think that putting a bunch of home schooled teenagers in a room would be a bad idea, but it worked out really well. Everyone was dancing and getting along and boys were coming to ask girls to dance and you and you wouldn't get that with any, any other online school, I don't think. But remember those experiences and remember those memories because you will likely hold on to those for the rest of your lives. And I think that's incredibly important. Some of the best years of my life I've spent at Kolbe and I've made so many friends here and so many memories and I will dearly miss all of you teachers and classmates alike and I think we can all sleep a little easier at night knowing that Adobe connect cannot hurt us anymore. Thank you.
