Graduation

I graduated from college today. I’ve been going to school since I could barely walk. And then not walk. And then sorta walk again. It’s finally over. No more formal education for me. Me learned good.

This morning, when I woke up with the sun, the only thing I was excited about was the nap I would eventually take later. The brief thought of lying back down and sleeping “just a few more minutes” crossed my mind, but I remembered that this wasn’t class. It was the official ceremony to end all class… forever.

I took a shower, using my chemistry skills to carefully concoct the perfect mixture of hot and cold. I operated on auto-pilot, rinsing and scrubbing without thinking, my mind wandering to 9th grade biology. At some point we learned the important muscles of the body, but I bet I couldn’t name any right then. Instead I just hummed “the hip bone is connected to the arm bone,” not caring that in my deliriousness I had created a monster.

I dried off and went into my room, finding my prosthetic leg propped up against the wall, prepared from the night before. I chuckled to myself about the old adage, “We all put our pants on one leg at a time.” I thought, “Yeah, but I put one leg in, then the other one in eight hours later.” As I finished cinching up my tie, I reminisced about the last time I had worn it on my first “real” interview, hiking from door to door with Jered, the local representative for wheelchair basketball. I slipped on my gown and wondered who had come up with the idea for a square hat. It was probably some random guy who laughs every time he thinks how ridiculous we all look in our pictures.

When we arrived at the arena, there was a very organized system consisting of a town crier screaming which way graduates should be headed. I saw a few people looking at their hands, making L shapes with their fingers to decide which way left was.

At the top of the stairs was a holding pen for all the graduates. I remarked to a few people “nice gown” on my way to the sign that read “BS JOUR.” I shook my head and thought, “You have no idea.”
Huddled among my people, we stood around discussing how none of us had jobs and the outlook was a collective “It doesn’t look good.” I elected to keep quiet. But I realized that everyone talked like me, over exaggerating and over describing everything. It saddened me to think that in just a few years, their creativity would be deadened by dry newspaper reporting.
These were the remaining writers in the department, one of the final classes to graduate with a degree in journalism from Texas A&M before it was replaced with Bachelor of Science in Puppetry or a BA in Manure Cultivation. Our line was significantly smaller and I noticed a few had “line envy.” We got a final pep talk from a seasoned professor of ours, who was now in the same jobless boat.

On the way down the endless flights of stairs, I thought about P.E. and how I was exerting more effort now than I ever did then. A “workout” consisted of pushing a bowling pin across the floor on bread carts, protecting it from a barrage of foam balls. Or it was sweet talking the appointed classmate into slipping me a few extra Popsicle sticks that signified a lap around the track. But at that point I had fallen considerably behind in the processional and had to jog to catch up in time to emerge onto the floor of the arena.

Everyone immediately whipped out their cell phones, calling their parents to find out where each other were seated. The entire throng of grads was waving their arms, spinning in confused circles. It would have looked strange if it wasn’t for the circular arena of well-wishers also waving wildly on their phones. When my mom called me, I sighed knowing I would soon be one of the wavers.
“Where are you seated?” she asked.
“In between the Lees and the Lins,” I said.
“I don’t see you,” she said.
“I’m the one not waving,” I thought to myself. But the ceremony had started, so the conversation ended before I could cause any more confusion.

The ceremony consisted of a lot of standing. Then sitting. Then some more standing. Then a WHOLE LOT of sitting. A few times I wished I had taken Peter up on the Gameboy offer. Tetris would have made the morning a little more bearable. I tried counting the people in the various sections of the program, comparing and contrasting out of sheer boredom. But I was never good at math, so I always lost count. I never really mastered my multiplication tables either. 6 times 7 always comes out, “hold on a second.”


Finally, after much yawning and staring into space, it was my turn to walk the plank/stage. It was like the world’s worst fashion show, everyone wearing relatively the same thing, sporting the awkward square hat.

When you get to the podium, you pronounce your name for the speaker, who then repeats it immediately into the microphone. I thought about feeding him a fake name like Jeffrey Danger Leins, but I pictured my mom’s angered face and decided against it.

As soon as he called my name, the entire arena disappeared. Lightning could have struck the other side of the court and I wouldn’t have noticed until I reached the other side of the stage. I concentrated on shaking hands with my right and receiving the diploma with my left. All I could hear in my head was my own voice saying, “Say thank you” to reply correctly to the congratulations from the line of hand shakers. One guy said “Welcome to the Association” (the Assoc. of Former Students). This threw me off and I had to fumble not to say, “You too.”

The girl in front of me took off down the court, not hesitating as the usher pointed towards her seat. She just bombed past her, not looking back, headed for sweet freedom. I envied her.

It wasn’t long after that the ceremony was over. The walk in was an organized stroll up the aisles to plenty of fanfare and flashbulbs. The walk out was a sudden mad dash for the door, every grad for themselves. My “after-hours” education (bar-administered) had taught me well enough about handling myself in a crowd and soon I was breathing fresh air again.

Then it was all over. I had graduated. I didn’t feel any different. I felt a little tired, I guess. But it felt good to be done. Forever.