My Anti-Graduation
Just to preface this, yes, I am graduating. At least as far as I know. It's not really official until grades are processed like three weeks from now anyway. Yay anticlimax!
I'm going to be honest with you here, higher educating is a pain in the ass. I would estimate that about 15% of college consists of standing in lines, filling out forms, and waiting for answers you may or may not get. So, it isn't surprising that the university would try to pull that sort of crap one last time before they let me go.
I was not looking forward to graduation. Being done, yes. The actual ceremony, no, not so much. The plan for the ceremony involves arriving at an unspecified location somewhere on campus at 7 AM to fill out forms, stand in lines, and god knows what else for two hours until the actual ceremony. Then on to two to three hours of sitting in a folding chair, listening to speeches from people I don't know and the reading of the names in no particular order of hundreds of people I also do not know. At some point in those proceedings I would hear my own name and be handed an empty folder (the actual degrees are mailed out sometime in July). Following that, I would go to a reception where I would see no students I know because my friends from the school who are also graduating almost unanimously decided not to go to the ceremony. Then I could studiously avoid running into the professors whose classes I totally blew off and may or may not have completed to cap off my final semester.
What I'm trying to say here is that all the graduation ceremony has going for it at this point is the funny hat.
Here's the epiphany I had today: I'm an adult (more or less), I'm done with school, and I don't have to go. I don't have any relatives coming from out of town. I'm not on any official list because I haven't filled out the previously mentioned forms. My family doesn't care - being the youngest does have it's perks, we've all been to half a dozen graduations already. If I don't want to go, I don't have to.
To celebrate my completion of college I'm skipping the last major hassle. Instead, I'm celebrating my own way. On Sunday I'm having a party with my friends. Tomorrow I'm getting dressed up and going out for brunch with my family. And tonight, right now, I'm going to stop being stressed out about school once and for all. *deep breath* I may also, at some point, wear a funny hat. You never know.
I'm going to be honest with you here, higher educating is a pain in the ass. I would estimate that about 15% of college consists of standing in lines, filling out forms, and waiting for answers you may or may not get. So, it isn't surprising that the university would try to pull that sort of crap one last time before they let me go.
I was not looking forward to graduation. Being done, yes. The actual ceremony, no, not so much. The plan for the ceremony involves arriving at an unspecified location somewhere on campus at 7 AM to fill out forms, stand in lines, and god knows what else for two hours until the actual ceremony. Then on to two to three hours of sitting in a folding chair, listening to speeches from people I don't know and the reading of the names in no particular order of hundreds of people I also do not know. At some point in those proceedings I would hear my own name and be handed an empty folder (the actual degrees are mailed out sometime in July). Following that, I would go to a reception where I would see no students I know because my friends from the school who are also graduating almost unanimously decided not to go to the ceremony. Then I could studiously avoid running into the professors whose classes I totally blew off and may or may not have completed to cap off my final semester.
What I'm trying to say here is that all the graduation ceremony has going for it at this point is the funny hat.
Here's the epiphany I had today: I'm an adult (more or less), I'm done with school, and I don't have to go. I don't have any relatives coming from out of town. I'm not on any official list because I haven't filled out the previously mentioned forms. My family doesn't care - being the youngest does have it's perks, we've all been to half a dozen graduations already. If I don't want to go, I don't have to.
To celebrate my completion of college I'm skipping the last major hassle. Instead, I'm celebrating my own way. On Sunday I'm having a party with my friends. Tomorrow I'm getting dressed up and going out for brunch with my family. And tonight, right now, I'm going to stop being stressed out about school once and for all. *deep breath* I may also, at some point, wear a funny hat. You never know.