Luis Ceballos:	Hi everyone. I'm not Derrick Graves but I'm up here. I was just notified 12 hours ago, I was not supposed to be here but I'm here now. I should be sitting up there somewhere with my [inaudible 00:15:09] north. Where you guys at? Yeah! They're up there.
	Unfortunately derrick could not be here today. He's in bed with a fever and [inaudible 00:15:20] for you how he wants you to take care of yourself if you were in a similar situation. Derick and I met our freshmen year at club soccer practice and have been good friends since. Last year we were actually part of the same dorm team as Ras, which only brought us closer together. I will be reading his speech for him today and you will soon find out that it revolves around friendship. Ignore me if I start speaking in the third person, I'm just reading what I was given. Alright, here we go.
	Before I begin, I would like to make a small remark. As you may soon learn, I'm quite involved in improve comedy here in Swarthmore. Naturally when I got the invitation to speak at first gathering I was worried. One of the things I quite enjoy doing on this campus is making people laugh, but most of my humor is improvised, so how would I make a written speech funny?
	The more I tried, the more I realized writing humor is not my strong suit. I just couldn't write something funny. So much to the dismay of President Smith, Dean Henry, and others, I have prepared absolutely nothing to say at all today. I'm hoping to demonstrate how I understand that I will make mistakes but my mistakes don't make me a failure.
	I am, of course, just kidding. I've prepared a speech for you today but since it is prepared, please forgive me if it is not too humorous. That said, let me begin.
	As Dean henry said, my name is Derrick Graves. If I were Derrick Graves. And I'm a member of the senior class. I am a member of the senior class too, so that works. On behalf of the student body here at Swarthmore and in particular the seniors. Welcome. Welcome to Swarthmore.
	Today, yo officially become part of an elite group of intelligent, driven, lively, caring, humble, quirky, clumsy, overtired, socially awkward, know-it-all nerds who don't really know how to throw a party and who didn't really gent into an ivy. I'm just reading wat he gave me.
	We call ourselves Swatties. I'm proud to be one and I hope you will be too. Had you gone to one of those ivys, you would soon join the ranks of notable alumni such as Barack and Michelle Obama, Alan Turing, Sonya Setimier and Doctor Seuss, all of whos accomplishments and accolades I need not mention. Instead, you've chosen to come to a place that has graduated otherwise unknown figures like Tiny Maxwell, Peter Shickle and Leon Henderson. If you don't know those names, don't worry, you probably shouldn't.
	Perhaps one of Swarthmore's biggest alumni, Tiny Maxwell, a six four, 200 pound football player is remembered for his position in college football's hall of fame as a referee. Peter Shickle, als known as Petey Q Bach, is best known for composing periodic classical musical masterpieces such as Fanfare For Fred, March of the Cute Little Witsprites and Safe Sextet. He's actually gotten four Grammys so there goes that. Leon Henderson was the founding head of our government's office of price administration, which was founded in 1941 and probably shut down in 1947.
	Henderson's ten year didn't even last that long, he was fired around a year afterwards. Hopefully by now you feel really confident about the school that you chose to come to. All jokes aside, I do have something serious to share with you today. About five and a half years ago I sat much in the same position that you sit now. It wasn't exactly the same position because for one, five and a half years ago would be about February. To my knowledge, no one sits out here in the amphitheater, or L-pac in this case, in the freezing cold listening to speeches in February. Instead of here, I was 10,000 miles south east in Swaziland, a small Southern African country that's home to an international school called Waterford Kamhlaba, United World College of Southern Africa. Yeah.
	Talk to Derrick. During my senior year of high school, I was lucky enough to obtain a scholarship to Waterford, so in January of 2012, I got on a flight, left everything I knew in search of an education. My amphitheater at the time was a damp auditorium that traded proper seating for thinly carpeted blocks. Not entirely unlike the stones you would have been sitting if it wasn't reining.
	It wasn't exactly the same place as you're sitting now but the similarities are clear. I just said goodbye to my parents and my brother for the first time. I was many miles away from home in a place that I felt utterly foreign. I was being talked at by a bunch of people whos job it was to introduce to me the school that I had chosen.
	I felt very afraid and very very alone. I was sitting next to a bunch of people that I did not know, but that i desperately wanted to be friends with. I also had high expectations for the school. Specifically how it and the people around me would completely change my worldview in a short span of two years. Now, looking back at my time at Waterford, the school and it's people certainly did change my worldview, but not in the ways that I had expected or hoped.
	I had expected my eyes to be open to new understandings of tolerance and acceptance. I expected to learn a great deal about cultures much different than mine. I expected to emerge from my two years there much more prepared to operate successfully in an increasingly interconnected world. I did find some of these things, but what I really found were friends.
	And not friends like I had in middle school or high school. Real, life long friends. Friends for whom I would drop everything if they called in need of help. Friends who will read a speech for you to the entire entering first year class with less than twelve hours notice.
	To provide a bit of context, my family moved multiple times while I was in middle school and high school. Whenever I got to a new place, I found it hard to fit in because everyone there had been friends with each other since they were little. If I'm honest, being a nerdy, math loving kid with not quite enough social savvy probably didn't help me but for whatever reason, I never had really close friends. I had a few people I hung out with regularly but no one who I felt close enough that I could trust our friendship would always be there supporting.
	That's less of a reflection on those friends as it is a reflection on me. Looking back now, I just hadn't found the right set of people. For the first few months at Waterford, things proceeded like they had at any other school. I had some people that I liked and hung out with, but I didn't feel extremely connected to anyone, then after a vacation I took over a long weekend, things changed.
	The story of the vacation is an incredibly long one, but the short of it is that I hoped and planned to spend  four days relaxing at a cabana at a beach in Mozambique with three acquaintances form shool and instead had the most intense, nerveracking, un-vacation-like vacation I've ever taken.
	The place we were staying lost our reservation, I left my suitcase in a cab and never got it back, we were held up at rifle point and my friend had a baby handed to her by a man who just left the child with her for the duration of a five hour bus ride. He took the baby back when he got off, but we weren't quite sure he was going to.
	When I got back to Waterford, I met up with my friends Alex, Ollie, and Wubantu. They wanted to hear what I had done over the break. So service there wasn't quite what it is here, so I wasn't just Snapchatting my experience the whole vacation, but we sat down for dinner and I described to them every detail of the unvacation. For two hours, they sat there, laughing, reacting, and listening intently. When I finished, all four of us had giant grins on our faces. They enjoyed hearing the story just as much as I enjoyed sharing it. It might sound weird but in those two hours of storytelling our friendships were cemented.
	We were already friends, but that evening brought us so much much closer than we were before. Over the next year and a half or so, Ollie, Alex, Wubantu and I continued to laugh, cry and share stories and experiences with each other. We had the best 18 months any of us had ever had. Now, we don't see each other as much as we'd like because we live in different corners of the world, but when we do see each other, we picked up right where we left off and it's a blast. These friends are the people who changed my worldview the most while I was at Waterford. I wanted life changing experiences and I got them. Instead of new found cultural knowledge and understandings of tolerance and acceptance, I discovered that loving friendships are some of the best things we have in this world.
	I had never really fully opened up myself emotionally to any of my friends until I got to Waterford, but once I did, I found people that would be with me for life.
	At this point, a reasonable question to ask would be Derrick, why'd you write a speech, that I had to read, about Swaziland? We don't go to Swaziland, we go to Swarthmore. That's what you're supposed to be telling us about. And you guys have a valid point. The good thing about my Waterford story is that the type of friendships I found there, I have also found here. In fact, sitting amongst you now is a life long friend of mine who I deeply love. We've dropped everything at a single text message to come support each other through difficult moments. We've also shared moments of great joy and uncontrollable laughter. Ironically enough, I'm wearing his tie now. I borrowed it from him last semester, and like a true friend, I totally forgot to give it back to him.
	We've only got one year left living in the same place, but I know it's gonna be a good one. Louise, I love you bud, thanks for the tie. I still don't have the tie back by the way. If you guys see him around, send him my way. 
	This week and indeed, the next month or so will be an absolute whirlwind for all of you. Everything is new, you'll constantly be meeting new people when trying to find your place. Amongst all this excitement and commotion, I encourage you to be patient. It's not all gonna happen at once, you'll find your people but it may not happen this month or even this semester and the people you find yourself wanting to befriend may not only be students. Staff members like Pat from [inaudible 00:25:37] and Caroline in admissions had been great friends to me over the last three years. I encourage you to find those people too.
	That's all I really have to share with you today but be patient, be kind, listen intently and hopefully you will find yourself loving the people on this campus just as much as I do. Thank you.