And graduation follies

Graduation would have been good if it weren't for the weather, and one or two other things.


It began to thunderstorm heavily during the last part. A lot of us just stood around after it was over and waited - in fact, the power went out in the arena, and a couple of cops who had apparently been brought in just in case kind of scrambled to make sure everyone stayed calm.

I had parked five or six blocks away (on the principle that it's better to let people who can't walk distances have the close parking) so I had to bundle my cap and hood and gown up and keep them up under my arm (I had an umbrella). I did wind up dropping my cap in a puddle and the tassel may be ruined....(and it's not an easily-replaceable one).  Also, my nice Klogs shoes may be ruined because a couple places I had no choice but to walk through about six inches of water. (We had flash flooding). Fortunately I knew the streets well enough to know which ones would be safe to drive and which would be flooded, and was able to get home okay.

And yeah, there were air horns. I'm sorry but if I ever become in charge of such things I am banning air horns. I would also make an announcement telling people not to keep whooping and hollering so long that the 2-3 graduates coming after are drowned out. (They had to repeat a couple of names, just because of one person's friends/family who kept it up for several minutes.)

And the most egregious thing I saw? Someone going through the line - here, we're small enough students walk across the stage, shake hands with the university president and dean and any dignitaries who are there, and are handed their fake diploma*.

Anyway, as one woman was crossing the stage, she STOPPED TO TAKE A SELFIE OF HERSELF WITH THE UNIVERSITY PRESIDENT. Now, you must understand: there is already an official photographer who takes an official photo of this moment, as well as another formal photograph moments later. What she did was stop the line for a bit while she did that. And no one said anything or tried to stop her. So I anticipate at least five or six more of these at later graduations.

Maybe I'm an excessively old-fashioned stick-in-the-mud, but I think that's pretty tacky. And, like the people who cheered loud and long enough that the names of the people after their person couldn't be heard, it's kind of selfish. Graduation is a day for ALL graduates, not just the person who happens to be walking across the stage at the moment.

I will note: if someone wants to take a selfie while they're sitting waiting to go up, I have no problem with that. If they want to even do it while standing in line, that's kind of okay. But doing it on stage, it slows up the process and draws undue attention to ONE person, and I tend to feel like graduation is for ALL the graduates. (I'd also be really discombobulated if a student wanted to stop on their walk back and take a selfie with a prof. If I were asked, I'd probably hiss, "I'll be by the east door after graduation, find me then" but then again, I tend not to be the kind of person who inspires that kind of love, so I can't see it ever happening to me)

(My own graduation, there were some 4000 of us, so we didn't get our names read or get to walk across a stage. In retrospect, I might not have gone. But whatever.)

(*Fake, because grades aren't even due until Monday, and there might be some people not-actually graduating, and there's not enough time to prepare the diplomas anyway. And this year everyone was all jumbled up - not in alphabetical order - so it would have been a nightmare to match the right diploma to the right student. The real ones are mailed in the summer.

The fake diploma is a photograph of the one fairly scenic building on campus (the library). I know I once opined that a picture of Rick Astley might also work, or maybe a mushroom-person saying, "Thank you, but your diploma is in another castle." Then again, kids today might not get either of those jokes....)