Pomp and circumstance.
If there is one thing that Hahvard is good at, it's at matters dealing with tradition. You don't break with tradition, and while it may seem so interminably drawn out - in the end, it's all good and fun. Well, sort of.
We had to be at school at 7:15am last Thursday morning so that we could line up to process over to Tercentenary Theatre, otherwise known as this large plot of grass where many many chairs are crammed together so that in the case of an emergency, you're basically screwed because there are so many people.
This is the line of us walking over. For some reason, our school did NOT get a bagpipe lead-in. I was very disappointed.
And so we walked, and walked, to what avail? So that we could stand in the blisteringly hot sun from 8-9:45am, just milling around while everyone else collected.
And we waited, and we drank, and we bitched and moaned because for crying out loud, those robes were HOT. It was like death. And the fact that it was well into the mid-80s and humid at 8:30am did NOT help. Whatever liquids were taken in were immediately sweated out. Yucky.
Finally, we got to walk to our seats. You know, after hanging around outside doing nothing but sweating for almost two hours.
It's like we were one gigantic can of sardines. Overeducated sardines.
Even though we were hot and sweaty, it did not stop us from checking out the other schools. Law students? Cute (Yes, we sat across the aisle from them, because I am apparently destined to be plagued by law students for the rest of my life). Med students? Cute. School of public health students? Cute, but they have fake Canadians (long story). Design students? Cute. Ed school? NO GUYS AT ALL.
Dammit. I'm always choosing the wrong profession.
Then the ceremony started. Words were said, but I wasn't really paying attention because I was so focused on how to make myself cooler , temperature-wise. But I videotaped it all, so it doesn't really matter that I wasn't following along.
Every time your school is mentioned, you wave things. The business school waved flags (usually, they wave money, which I think is more amusing). The law school waved gavels. The Kennedy school waved globes and a newspaper, while the graduate school of arts and sciences had only globes. The Extension school waved genie lamps (not sure where that came from). The divinity school had halos attached to their mortarboards, whereas the design school had buildings attached to theirs and waved drafting paper. The damn public health people waved plastic fruits, which really hurt when they threw them. I got beaned by a cauliflower, my friend by a tomato. The medical school had water-filled latex gloves, which looked like udders. And being the ed school, we waved children's books which we later gave to schools. Because we're nice like that.
Tons of freaking people.
Afterwards, we processed back to our respective schools to receive our diplomas, aka stew in the sun some more. Bored during the ceremonies, we discussed which of our friends we'd eat the first if we had to (I do not know how this conversation transpired). And then we decided that we'd be confit, because we had been cooking in our damn fat all day long. I paint such a pretty picture, don't I.
This is back at the ed school. I'm glad that my diploma envelope wasn't empty.
Afterwards, I immediately went home to shower. I have never been so gross nor sweaty in my life. Then we watched the afternoon ceremonies from the comfort of my AIR CONDITIONED home. Larry Summers spoke. He was boring. John Lithgow spoke. He was funny.
Tomorrow (or whenever I get around to it) - graduation dinner pictures! Do you think that we could do anything that did not involve food? Hah!
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