11 June 2010

Graduation happened and it was like this

Much has happened in the last few weeks. I guess I'll start with "graduating college."
The week leading up to graduation I sort of thought I was going to die. As relatives trickled in, I was taken out to eat for almost every meal everyday. Which is AWESOME, DUH but was also a little overwhelming and I sort of feared for my well-being (though not enough to turn down free meals).
During this week, I had finals. Is this normal? SCAD's last day of classes is on a Thursday and then SCAD graduation is on Saturday. Not much downtime.
The day before graduation was "graduation rehearsal." Except it was more of "everyone sit down while we explain shit you already know, including how to put on a cap and gown." They never covered how you get to the stage, in what order, who gives you your diploma, etc etc, which I didn't realize until right before I had to go on stage. Also bought my cap and gown the day before graduation (whatever). "That'll be a hundred dollars," said the Herff Jones woman. "O.K.," I said, dying inside a little bit. "Cash only. Don't you have cash?" Yeah, that's true, you're right, Herff Jones woman. Let me whip out five of the many twenty dollar bills I carry around with me all the time. Had to go to the ATM. Annoying. But really, $100 for a fucking cap and gown? That is a lot of money for some pieces of [ugly] [hot as hell] shit.
We had to be at the Savannah Civic Center at 7:15am. Because of having to bathe myself and also picking up Victoria, I had to wake up at 5. That means an hour into commencement, I was ready to die.
Commencement was at 9 and Isabella Rossellini was our speaker. Do you guys know how gorgeous she is? She is way gorgeous. And her speech ripped. I was at commencement last year when Glenn Close spoke . . . but in my opinion, Isabella Rossellini was better. I usually roll my eyes at actresses talking about being insecure about how they look, even though I know everyone gets insecure no matter how hot you are. But then when Isabella Rossellini said, "When your mother is in Casablanca, you never feel beautiful enough," I had to hand it to her on that one.
Graduation was broken into two ceremonies and mine was at 1. Not enough time between commencement and graduation to take a nap, as I so desperately wanted to. Instead Ben and I went to Wendy's.
Do you guys get sick when you're really tired? I hadn't slept well the past two nights, plus had been up since 5. When I get really tired like that, I start to feel way sick to my stomach. And sitting in the last row at graduation, I was teetering on feeling like I was going to throw up and feeling like I might pass out. Seems like graduation took longer this year. Sort of sad, since the reason it seemed that way is because I'm friends with more people who graduated a year ahead of me.
One of the last people to see us before we walked on stage was Wyc, who was our academic adviser for the whole time the major has been around, save this last quarter. Wyc is awesome and super nice and super positive and seeing him nod to each of us with a "Hey y'all" or "Aw, congratulations, girl" was a nice boost of chill. When the girl before me walked onstage, I stepped forward and the woman at the stage stopped me and said, "Wait." But then she never said anything else. I waited for her to say "Now," or something of that nature, or to push me forward, but she never did. So I got really nervous and just said, "Uh, O.K., I'm going now," and just sort of walked forward.
I had been warned about pronunciation problems at graduation, so I went to my graduation auditor twice (in addition to the original meeting) about how to pronounce my middle name. My middle name is Carea, but it's pronounced Carrie or Carry or Carey etc etc. But everyone thinks it's Korea. And without fail, despite my efforts, I was announced on stage as "Elizabeth Korea Dixon." Whatever.
I also realized I took more pictures at last year's graduation (a couple dozen) than I did at my own (zero). Was more concerned about getting it done, I guess.

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