Proud Parents
Proud Parents
Originally uploaded by karensimms. I did it! I walked in graduation today. Wow. When I earned my BA I was pretty darn proud of myself. My son was only two-months-old at the time and I felt I had accomplished something pretty darn big. Today's graduation was very different. I didn't quite expect to be so moved by the whole experience.
There were about 2600 graduates and their family and friends (each graduate was given 6 tickets). The arena was completely packed, some families had to sit in overflow rooms watching the ceremony on a monitor. I was the first MSW student to enter the arena. I walked directly behind the Community and Social Planning banner. I figured my family would find me if I came in first. They did. I looked up into the audience and saw my son waving to me. How wonderful. The commencement speaker was horrible. I mean, he was an extremely brilliant man, but he had not inflexion in his voice and his speech wasn't very inspirational. He talked a lot about DNA and genomes and stuff (one would think I would be INTO such topics). The problem was, he talked about cancer and malaria and even mentioned finding a cure for diarrhea. I mean seriously, does this sound inspirational. We really don't need to hear about feces at graduation. Anyway, in my usual smart-ass style, I was making terrible jokes that had everyone around mu choking on their laughter. I mean really, diarrhea...what next.
I did not trip or slip or twist my ankle or anything like that. I strolled across the stage gracefully, shook the appropriate hands, grabbed my empty diploma folder, had my picture taken, and followed the heard back to my seat. I decided I did not want to sit through the rest of the graduates (I was in the first 20), so I stood up, found a way around the guys watching the exits, and bolted. The best part was when I looked behind me and saw all of the other MSW students following me. I'm such a leader.