R-E-S-P-E-C-T

I just finished watching President Obama's speech he gave to k-12 students this week and loved it!

I can't believe that so many opposed the President of the United States speaking to American school children for 18 minutes. And not only opposed it, but showed great disrespect for the Office of the President. Even if we don't respect the person elected, we should all respect the office he holds.

In my opinion, the speech is not promoting a political agenda.... President Obama is encouraging students to stay in school and work hard. He's telling them to achieve their dreams through education and diligence.

Here are a few excerpts from his speech that inspired me:

"And no matter what you want to do with your life, I guarantee that you'll need an education to do it. You want to be a doctor, or a teacher, or a police officer? You want to be a nurse or an architect, a lawyer or a member of our military? You're going to need a good education for every single one of those careers. You cannot drop out of school and just drop into a good job. You've got to train for it and work for it and learn for it."

"No one's born being good at all things. You become good at things through hard work. You're not a varsity athlete the first time you play a new sport. You don't hit every note the first time you sing a song. You've got to practice. The same principle applies to your schoolwork. You might have to do a math problem a few times before you get it right. You might have to read something a few times before you understand it. You definitely have to do a few drafts of a paper before it's good enough to hand in."

And my favorite was one of his personal stories about education and sacrifice:

" When I was young, my family lived overseas. I lived in Indonesia for a few years. And my mother, she didn't have the money to send me where all the American kids went to school, but she thought it was important for me to keep up with an American education. So she decided to teach me extra lessons herself, Monday through Friday.

But because she had to go to work, the only time she could do it was at 4:30 in the morning. Now, as you might imagine, I wasn't too happy about getting up that early. And a lot of times, I'd fall asleep right there at the kitchen table. But whenever I'd complain, my mother would just give me one of those looks and she'd say, "This is no picnic for me either, buster."