While it may be easy to remind you all of the day you first stepped onto Robo lawn for your DOC trip, ran around the bonfire during your first homecoming and won your first game of pong (or if you haven't what have you been doing all of Senior Week?), for many of you the experiences that stand out most are not those that appear on the Dartmouth bucket list, but rather the moments that were uniquely your own.
Sure, jumping into the icy waters of Occom Pond during the Polar Bear Swim might have severely impacted your body temperature, but what about that moment in class when you realized what you wanted to write your thesis on? You may have felt a sense of triumph when you made your Greek house's M@sters team, but how about when you bumped into that stranger in the FoCo sandwich line who ended up becoming your best friend? Whether you have checked off nine or 90 items on the Dartmouth bucket list, you have all probably had experiences at the College that have seriously impacted you in one way or another.
As you walk out of here, degree in hand, and reflect back on the 5,850 minutes of class you (maybe) attended each term, the mere 28 hours of sleep you got during that one particularly brutal exam period and the 440 grilled cheese sandwiches you ordered at obscure hours of the night, don't forget the moments you've had here that can't be quantified or checked off a list.
So congratulations, Class of 2011! Go out into the real world and shed the protections of this Hogwarts+Disneyland bubble we inhabit. And when real life gets you down, never forget the immortal words of Michael Jackson: "Don't blame it on sunshine/ Don't blame it on the moonlight/ Don't blame it on the good times/ Blame it on the boogie."
