The End of the Beginning
So here I was now, on the eve of yet another graduation. I had been a little ambivalent about the whole thing as I've already mentioned, but as the big day approached, I've got to admit I was getting a little more excited about the whole thing. I somehow had faith that things were going to work out this time around.
Friday the 13th is a day a lot of superstitious people dread. I've never subscribed to that belief personally. For me a lot of Friday the 13ths have gone quite well and I realized that this one had extra special significance. May 13th, 2011 would be the last day I would be Mr. John R Myers: from then on it would be Dr. John R. Myers. Doctor of Pharmacy and Doctor Outlaw as I jokingly posted the next day on Facebook regarding the matter.
The day was unusually cold for May. The first item of business was to attend this session regarding our student loans. I had lucked out, between my parents support and a lot of hard work whenever I had a major break, I was looking at only $44K of debt out of a roughly $150K tuition for my 4 year stint at Creighton. Not a bad deal if I say so myself. They had actually offered this session earlier, about a week and a half ago. I had been unable to attend that one because of the work obligations I had gotten myself into at Wally world. And judging by the fact that a room that could hold about 200 people was standing room only practically, I would say the attendance at that earlier session had been minimal at best. One of the things I have never particularly liked about the whole school thing is sitting around listening to people talk. Basically they told me nothing I couldn't have learned from looking at the handout and figured out on my own in a fraction of the time I was forced to sit there. I did put the time to good use, mostly in researching rental places for trailers. I had been instructed to do so for the purposes of moving my massive quantity of belongings back from Omaha. Its amazing how much junk you can accumulate in two years, even if you're not trying that hard.
It was interesting from one point of perspective, for the first time in a long time we were all gathered in the same spot. It had a bit of a nostalgic feeling in that sense; it was like we were back in class again, one more time. It had been over a year ago the last class we had. Even then it seemed like a long way to go until graduation, but here we were, on the eve of it. One problem was not all of us had made it, but more on that later.
Next stop was over at the health sciences library building in one of the rooms that had been one of our common classrooms BIC 109. The purpose here was to get our computers "reimaged", basically removing all the programs which we had been allowed to use through a contract with the school. Now that our status as students was to have the prefix of former, we were no longer allowed this stuff. We had received the email that they were to be a "special gift" to us, the same special gift they give every graduating class. In the wake of about $160000 of tuition how altruistic of them, still I can't complain. It certainly saved me a lot of trouble, namely in having to go the expense of a couple hundred to a couple thousand to get a new system up and running. It took them some time to get things ready once we had done the few things we had to there, so I left the computer there and went to get my robe and mortarboard.
I had just managed to get things back together (and tried on the gown :D) when I got the call I had been waiting for. Mom and Dad were here. I got ready and headed over. I put all my stuff back on since it was getting close to time for the initial ceremony. I drove over to the hotel, I knew where it was. We had set this thing up weeks in advance, and I think I mentioned that I had checked it out on my way back from my hospital rotation one day. I ran into a minor problem on arrival. Parking in downtown Omaha isn't always the easiest thing to do. One time we were meeting at Old Chicago for a Kappa Psi thing and my solution was to walk over, interrupted by some of my friends seeing me and giving me a ride. In a moment of lesser judgement I went to park in the hotel garage and took a ticket for it. According to Dad usually it costs a lot to park in these places unless you're a guest and use the room (for the obvious reason of preventing people other than hotel guests from using it). But then I immediately thought, I don't have to turn in the ticket, I'll just use our key to get out. I do have my moments every now and then.
For the hooding ceremony we were herded into a back area where they had things set up so we would be organized when it came time to do the ceremony. So much so there was masking tape on the floor with our names where we were supposed to be. I don't know if we could have gotten much more crowded back there and, needless to say, wearing the heavy robes, it got a little hot. I even saw some of the folks pull theirs up for a little while to get some much needed fresh air on their skin. It also didn't help that this was the usual "hurry up and wait" situation. But eventually the show got on the road.
The ceremony started out with a brief speech by each of the leaders of the respective groups: distance and campus pharmacy and physical therapy. Then the family of Rebecca Coon, the classmate who had died, came up and they were given her posthumously awarded degree. That was a sobering moment, more so for me I think than anyone else. I couldn't help but think back to both of my close calls on the road: my deer incident over winter break and particularly my August incident on the way to my rotation site.
Afterwards we all headed back to the hotel and hung around and visited. When we were considering the ideas for dinner, the Orsi's pizza I had enjoyed during rotation #6 seemed to be something that everyone thought would be good. So I proceeded to place the order and then go and pick it up. On examination of the change, I think they gave us $20 too much, something to bear in mind when I'm going through the Omaha area at some point. It turned out to be a popular choice. I think I was wanting to have it one last time before I departed from the Omaha area.
The next day was the big day. Down at the Qwest center (now renamed so I've heard, but I'll always refer to it as that) we were organized much in the same way as the night before. One major difference was at least there was space to where we didn't feel like sardines. I can't say I felt too strongly about it; this being my third graduation it was just another day at the races for me. Again the lack of a job in hand probably fueled my sense that this was an incomplete moment. But I still felt good about it regardless. The ceremony was pretty routine as graduations go. I have to admit, once it was done, I was a little disappointed that my family took off so quickly. I had some hopes of getting some photos with some of my friends. As it was one person actually wanted to get one with me, Theresa. That meant a lot to me, so much so it was my facebook profile pic until I got the one taken of me in front of the Walmart sign with my name just having been added. It occurs to me too, amongst friends who tend to have photos where there with other people, the one of Theresa and I was the very first one as a profile pic where I was not the only human in it. Kind of a telling thing about me.
After some relaxation back at the hotel, we went and got the planned dinner of Olive Garden. Then it was off to my apartment to make the final preparations for moving me. The next day we went around trying to find the truck rental place we had looked up. Original plans had rotated around a trailer towed by the Envoy, but we quickly decided that there was far too much stuff for that alone to hold everything. So we got an actual U-haul van, which would be very useful experience for the future move down to Missouri. After a long morning of loading up, we finally made the final run to Sioux Falls.
So that's it. After nearly four years, my time in Omaha was over and done with. I had survived pharmacy school and earned the title of Doctor of Pharmacy. And the night of graduation, I received the first of several contacts from a Mickey Boles. It was expressing interest in my as a candidate for a graduate intern position in Missouri. This was the beginning of destiny. But that is a story for yet another entry.