Graduation
Yes, finally, I am through with college!
My day started off boring and slid kinda downhill from there. We were herded into line-like formations about an hour before the actual commencement started. Finally, the lines started moving, but in stops and starts, like there was a bad traffic jam made out of the less intelligent undergrads up ahead. Maybe we DID need marching practice. Oh well.
Finally, several eons later, we were seated, packed in like sardines, and listening to our president's southern twang welcome everyone, blah blah blah... Then the CEO of Lucent, who was our speaker, bored us to tears. Then we handed out honorary doctorates to, imagine this, the CEO of Lucent, two guys I'd never heard of, and the guy the movie "The Insider" was based on. I imagine he's the only one who actually deserved it, the other guys probably greased palms left and right to buy their meaningless, but pretty degrees.
Then, the interminably long line of black robed ex-students began to shuffle forward while the announcer mispronounced the simplest names, adding syllables that didn't belong there. "Joshua Millard" became "Jos-shoe-ahh Mill-aye-ard", for instance. *shakes his head* It was during this amazingly long period of time that my face became quite scorched, and my gown started getting so hot that I was afraid it was going to burst into flames. Which would have been inconvenient, but would have at least made things interesting for everyone else.
When my name was called, I was dazed. I walked up, shook the president's hand, took my maroon bound diploma, and floated offstage, completely unaware of people in the audience clapping or screaming, and waved my diploma in the air as soon as I was offstage. I didn't remember to flip my tassel over until I was in my rickety plastic folding chair again, waiting for the master's degree and doctorates to get their diplomas, then listening to one of our class froth at the mouth during his speech. Finally, the president spoke, the reverend spoke, and we were out of there.
During the recessional, I made a break for the treeline as soon as I was out of the aisles of endless seats. I figured the line was going the wrong way anyways, and my family, happily sitting in the shade, was jumping up and down and waving frantically.
As I sat at dinner with them, I still couldn't believe that I had a diploma. That they'd actually GIVEN me my diploma - the most expensive piece of paper I'd ever bought.
2 days later, I'm still in shock.