On Saturday we had the last of the undergrad graduations in the family, at least for the next 21 years until the baby goes to college. (Which totally has to be the old alma mater, kid really doesn't get a choice in that--something that more than one person pointed out to him during the ceremony.) I still think fall graduations are weird--it's just weird to have people finishing school when it is utterly pea-soup cloudy and in the midst of rainstorm season--though the rain at least held off until after it was over. But I still felt very sorry for all the girls in skimpy dresses posing for photos, while meanwhile I was wearing sweatpants under my velvet outfit and giant hat and coat and scarf and all that. Also, despite them fitting a smaller graduating population into this one, somehow there were tons of cars anyway. Though I was surprised to see empty seats in the auditorium at all--which explains why my cousin got 12 seats to fit alllllll the relatives in.

Notable moments of graduation:
(a) The chancellor's speech was on the likelihood of people not being able to find jobs right after graduation, and she said it took her a year to get a job herself out of undergrad. I do give her credit for mentioning such a thing, though. This was followed up by a list of our illustrious "famous" graduates, which sort of kicked in on my feelings about how much of a loser I am these days.
(b) The student speaker has SIXTEEN family members that have graduated from this school. Makes our six look like nothing. I found out that my graduating cousin knew/was friends with the guy--and her older sister was friends with his older brother. Who, incidentally, has the same name as an old famous Hawaiian singer, something that the third cousin and I were snickering at because if you had that last name, of course you wouldn't be able to resist using the first.... He also started the speech out by addressing various people in the audience, including "less successful siblings...." To which Alicia and I, sitting next to each other, were all, "Yeah, that'll go over well at the graduation party." (We were having a lot of fun making cracks about things.) He also started out by talking about YOLO and the crazy bad life decisions some people make while saying it....which was a little eye-rolly for me because I'm tired of hearing about it, and something I had to explain to Mom afterwards. Not that it was bad, mind you, but that stood out.
(c) As per a pretty-much-Christmas graduation, the students were played out to "Winter Wonderland."
(d) Mom ran around buying my cousin last-minute stuff outside, including a $10 program and a $20 T-shirt with all of the graduates' names on it. Boy, did my cousin put her foot in her mouth when she was all, "No, I don't want a shirt...." afterwards. *wince*

Other than that, the graduation was pretty much waiting around for my cousin to hit the stage, attempting to take photographs of such, and then waiting around for another hour and change. I crocheted through it and made jokes, and the baby pretty much got passed down the entire row of relatives. He was very good and didn't cry or yell or anything, which was probably more behaved than some of the audience members.

After the requisite picture-posing outside, we attempted to leave the parking garage....for like, over an hour. Very, very long slow line to get out. By which I mean that I actually got out of the car and went to the bookstore to buy my cousin a graduation card before we got out of the parking lot. We very eventually made it to my aunt's house for the pre-party lunch and decorations stuff.

The party itself was fun--I had lots of fancy drinks and wine and yay, wine. I had interesting conversations with people, and heard about the drama of my cousin who now lives in Hawaii's various bad living situations. First one bailed before she got there, second had a creepy kid wandering through her space, third one was trying to get illegal law advice...so now she lives in a dorm with an Indian girl who keeps asking my cousin if she's Jewish because the only white girls who go to law schools are Jewish. To which I was all, "I can get asking once, but multiple times? Does she think you're going to change your mind about it?" I gather someone else also said to her, "You're white. Do you like rice? Do you like Spam?" Said cousin claims to love Hawaii, but spends most of her time in the library and wants to transfer after a year because guess what, she can''t stand to be without her family. The baby continued to be cute and adorable, so that was going on as well.

The graduate will hopefully get a job and eventually go to vet school. She was also wearing a dress that was black lace...and while it had to have had a sheer skin-covered slip under it....well, I technically never saw anything, but both me and her other cousin were all, "I keep checking your butt to see if I see something." I am not the only one with a dirty mind on that. My uncle's sister got a new guide dog puppy flunkout and the puppy jumped in some folks' laps like whoa. It was pretty funny.

We got home very late, but it was a good time, and Mom got to help in the kitchen so she was happy, and generally speaking, all was well. Go figure.

previous entry - next entry
archives - current entry