Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams
"Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams" was delivered on September 18, 2007, at Carnegie Mellon University's McConomy Auditorium. Over 450 Carnegie Mellon students, staff members, and friends of Pausch attended the lecture, leaving only standing room as this was more than the auditorium could hold. Pausch later commented about this in an interview, saying "A couple of hundred people in a room, looking and listening and laughing and applauding – hopefully at the appropriate times – that gives a lot of validation to my kids that a lot of people believe in this, and a lot of people who knew me believe that I did my best to try to live this way." The first introduction of the speech as well as the series of lectures was given by Indira Nair, the Vice Provost for Education at Carnegie Mellon. Nair first explained the university's aforementioned lecture series called "Journeys", in which eight more professors from Carnegie Mellon would share their insights on their professional and personal experiences over the years.
March for Our Lives
Other participants included Naomi Wadler, who is an elementary school student in Alexandria, Virginia, Trevon Bosley from Chicago whose brother was shot and killed leaving church, Edna Lizbeth Chavez, a high school student from Los Angeles, and Zion Kelly, whose twin brother was shot and killed during an armed robbery. Yolanda Renee King, granddaughter of Martin Luther King Jr., also made an appearance along with Mya Middleton, a student from Chicago representing After School Matters, Matt Post, a senior from Montgomery County, Christopher Underwood, an 11-year old from New York, Alex King and D'Angelo McDade from Chicago, and Matthew Soto, brother of Sandy Hook victim Victoria Soto.
González, after speaking and naming the seventeen victims, stood silent for over four minutes, after which a cellphone alarm went off and she announced that it was the six minute and twenty second point in her speech, equal to the length of the Parkland shooting. González ended her speech saying,