The REAL catching up.

I am a bit adrift with thoughts about graduation, and finishing school, preparing (mostly mentally) for student teaching in the fall, and increasing my hours at starbucks. I finished school a little more than a week ago, and I took the week off to celebrate/prepare for graduation. So I have had a lot of free time to finish a novel I was reading, clear off my DVR, and watch some movies on netflix. I've also started a training program with my dog (so we'll see how that goes over the summer). What I have not been doing is thinking about the fact that I am done with school as we (I) know it, and what that feels like.

Apparently, I should have been because that is exactly the question that everyone has for me.

So here it is, my written reflection on graduating/tion:

It doesn't really feel like anything. Yet. The feeling is indeterminate from every other summer vacation of my college career. In fact I had to register for my last batch of classes (student teaching=18units=$3200) the other day. It places an odd significance on things when you realize that it is "the last time" you will do this or that. So finals week was punctuated with a series of these insignificant milestones. The last time I would trudge the 300 yards from/to my car from class, or buy a scantron, or clamor out of a silent lecture hall while struggling to collect my things after taking a test.

These are things I will forget to miss.

I have been doing this in one form or another for 7 years. I have learned mostly that there is not time to learn everything, or even everything you want to, there is only enough time to learn that which is on the test-and a little bit of what is interesting to you.

My graduation day started early. I got up before my alarm at 6:15, put on my flip flops and took the elevator down to the ground floor and jaywalked across six lanes (and a median) to the starbucks I work at. Not to work (i was still in my pj's) but to get some coffee beans for Joy and get my schedule for next week and my tips from last week. I went back home, got dressed, and finished cleaning the apartment. Meg and I went for breakfast at the pancake house, I had some wonderful pecan pancakes, and came home. Since it was Friday, we had to take the dog to the dog park. We had Joy and Mikayla meet us there. The dog and the goddaughter had a good time, and we came home. I changed shirts and grabbed my cap and gown and went to the school. Meg and Joy followed in Joy's car later. I had to coordinate two sets of parents traveling to my school from two different cities in opposite directions, so I got there a little earlier. Although both sets of parents had already arrived.

Other than "fill out this card" we were given no further instructions. I found my good friend Charlene, a fellow prospective biology teacher, nerd, and all around kind human being, and we got into a blob of biology students we kinda recognized from some of our classes. They started the processional and walked us into the "stadium". On the way in, for about 50 ft, the walkway was lined with people throwing armloads of confetti into the air above the graduates.

This was the most magical moment of the whole day. For a brief 50 feet I was filled with such childlike joy that I am at a loss to express. After that it was anticlimactic.

I won't bore you with the details of the ceremony. If you cared about the goings on you would have been there, but really, nobody cares what they say other than your/your loved one's name.

Highlights: During the address I received my results on the state testing from earlier in the semester-the timing was uncanny (I passed, by the way). The announcers were AMAZING, they made every name sound like they were participants in the largest WWF smackdown in history, sooooo awesome.

Then it was over.

My inlaws, my parents, my grandma Lois, Joy and Mikayla all came back to our place to meet all the birds and regroup after the ceremony and before heading back home. It was really fun, grandma Lois had never met Meg's parents, and she enjoyed playing with our bird squeaky. My parents had to go early to make the long drive back before getting stuck in traffic. We went out to dinner with the Kaisers, and then they left. And Miki and Joy stayed into the evening and wore out both me and Wren chasing Miki around.

It was a wonderful day. I was so tired I went to bed at 9:30.

10 years ago I went to Meg's graduation. 7 years ago was Mark's, and 5 years ago Cory graduated. It took a while but its finally my turn. I am catching up.