Graduation Day

And I'm graduated!!!  Let me tell you, it feels great to FINALLY be done.  And I should know.  I graduated from high school a little more than seven years ago, which is a long time since I'm sure that the majority of the university graduates sitting up front next to me today graduated from high school about four or five years ago.  But I did other stuff, like SMing and working and changing my major four times.  So what I'm basically trying to say is that it really feels awesome to be done this next step in my life.  I'm sure you all know how grads go so I won't get into the whole ceremony.  I'll just say a couple things:  (a) I had to get a picture taken by an American flag.  I asked the camera person, "What if I'm not American?" but got no answer other than a shrug and a nervous laugh.  (b) Commencement address was terribly boring, in my non-financially-oriented brain.  Maybe some people liked it, but I sure wasn't interested.  I used that time to text Jonathan, who was sitting several rows in front of me.  (c) Class gift at the end?  Strange.  The whole talk about it being almost as long as the address was super annoying to me.  I really don't care much for or against the gift, but I felt a whole lot more against it after that whole rigmarole than before it.  Yeah, it's a picture.  People will look at it.  But what can anyone really do with it?  I'd rather have gotten another gazebo thing for people to swing in or eat food in or hang out in or something else like that that people could actually use.  But a picture is fine.  Just don't make me sit in my chair an extra 20 minutes telling me stuff I already heard over an e-mail, on a voice mail, and at grad practice.  (d) The idea of having people gather at their major signs in the hallway after grad made sense, but it didn't turn out to be very practical.  There are just too many people attending grad for that kind of thing to be very feasible.  Oh well, I guess they'll probably do something different for next year.

So after grad, a bunch of graduates and our families and friends met at student park for a haystack, potluck meal.  It was great, especially since my family made sure to bring pickles.  Americans seriously don't know what they're missing out by not having pickles on their haystacks.  Then we had a bunch of pictures taken of the grads with a big cake and then people ate the cake, but I opted not to since I am still caked out from all the cakes I've eaten earlier in the semester.

After the meal and hanging out and visiting, people started leaving and then mine and Jonathan's and Danielle's families moved by the Southern sign and got some pictures and then we left to go back downtown to the aquarium.  I've been there tons, but it was fun showing it to the family and friends who had never been there yet.  I especially love watching the sharks and spent a good portion of time sitting in front of that tank.  Oh and also the crocodiles and turtles.  When we were done at the aquarium, it was pouring rain so my parents ran to get the vehicles and drove them as close as they could.  We all piled in and then went to Panera's to get food to go and then we all came back to our apartment to eat it.  Ahhh, a good fulfilling day.  Oh, and busy!