Graduation is right around the corner, as the seniors start to countdown the days and feel the ever growing excitement. The campus has two silver bleachers set upon the footsteps of A building where the seniors can begin to imagine what it will be like to be seated there on graduation day. This year McKinley’s graduation commencement ceremony is on May 20 at 5 p.m.

The MHS graduation ceremony is unusual because the graduating seniors do not get their names called and at the completion of the ceremony the final steps for the graduating class is to walk across “The Oval,” a long-awaited tradition for four years.

Senior Jackie Recaido said, “I feel that our graduation tradition is very honorable; walking across the oval with my class (of 2012) and getting to celebrate this significant moment in ours as well as our family’s lives.”

Seniors are starting to feel a rush of different emotions as graduation day is becoming closer. Recaido said, “My feelings about graduation is kinda jumbled up. I can’t explain how I feel because there are just so many different emotions that I know I will probably have before, during and after graduation.”

After graduation the next question for seniors is what do I do next.

Recaido said, “I chose to attend project grad because I want to spend time with my fellow classmates and because it might be perhaps the last time we see each other.”

Recaido feels graduation is the “moment where we celebrate our years of accomplishments, struggles, achievements, whatever else it may be, with the people we care about as well as the people who care for us.”

She said graduating also means, “that we are heading towards the next steps of our careers and we are now capable of making our own decisions in our lives.”

Recaido plans to attend Kapiolani Community College after high school and be enrolled in their nursing program.

She said, “In the future, I plan to be working in the medical field. I also plan to become a journalist later on.”

Senior Hing Yee said, “I look forward to graduation, which is coming up fast. To me, graduation is a milestone, and it is just the beginning.”

Stephanie Ngo, a graduating senior, said “I’m definitely going to miss the comfort of high school.”

Recaido said, “To the class of 2012, I just want to congratulate everyone in completing the seemingly easy but hard, long but short four years of high school.”

She said there has been many moments over the years, which makes it hard to believe how fast the time has flown by.

Recaido said, “I hope that everyone will be happily successful in what they do. I will miss the feeling of hating to go to school, the nagging teachers who even weren’t our enemies but actually were there to help us.”

She said, “I will miss the funny moments that there was with everyone, with my friends, and with the teachers,” and “most of all, as much as I don’t want to admit, I will truly miss high school.”

The senior class of 2012 will go on to pursue their bright futures and embark on marvelous journeys. Wherever life takes them, they will forever have the memory of being a McKinley tiger engrained in their hearts, from all the bad times to all the good times.

Best wishes to everyone in the graduating class of 2012! May your future be bright and very prosperous.

Let’s begin the journey to forever!