Worus

Now Listening to: Epilogue
Masaharu Iwati & Hitoshi Sakimoto, Final Fantasy Tactics Original Soundtrack

It’s taken me some time to get to the computer to write about it, but I did graduate on Saturday. I’m a real computer scientist now. The ceremony was actually pretty cool. I was figuring that it would be really long and boring, but it was only three hours, and the whole setup was cool. I got to line up with Beth, Oksana, Andrew, Chintaka, and Bess, which was fun. Unfortunately, we were seated separately. Beth and I went into the end of one row, and the others got set at the far end of another row, so we couldn’t talk through the ceremony. There were a lot of people in cellular phones during the ceremony. That was kind of funny.

At one point in the ceremony, they were presenting the first diploma for one of the colleges to a student marshall. All of the student marshalls had been female, so I commented on it. The guy next to me said that two of them were guys, and showed me in the booklet. To my surprise, the student marshall for the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences was Omar! I have a picture of him carrying in the college’s flag.

When the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences stood up, and President Geoffrey was conferring degrees on the students from the college, we saw up in the balcony a giant yellow banner reading “Computer Science.” It was Gloria with the department’s banner! She had said that she would be there, and to look at the balcony during the ceremony. I thought that she just meant to remember that she was there. No, Gloria meant to look and specifically see her!

They went to talk about Omar and present him with his diploma, and Gloria took her banner down. However, when we all lined up to get our degrees, Gloria put the banner back up and held it up for the entire College of Liberal Arts and Sciences portion of the ceremony, waving as she spotted people in the line up. I got my wave in to Gloria, so that was extra special.

All in all, it was really cool. I’m not sure where I’m headed next, but I’m okay with that.

The college adventure is complete!

Subject: Graduation Ceremony at Hilton tomorrow
From: Gloria M. Cain
Date: 05/07/2004 02:32 PM
To: Computer Science Class of Spring 2004

IF you are planning to attend the university graduation ceremony in Hilton on Saturday, May 8, be sure to be there by 12:45. The graduation evaluators will be lining up graduates by college (the LAS College is the last college marching in). It would be terrific if several (or ALL) of you could get together in a group.

After the speech by John Pappajohn, there will be a short speech by President Geoffrey. They will then start calling the graduates from the various colleges up. You’ll march up, one by one, on both parts of the stage. As your named is called and you shake hands up Dr. Geoffrey, look up on the first balcony.

Congratulations!!! You are personifications of the statement by J. Hudson Taylor “It’s not how many hours you put in, but how much you put into the hours”.

I am glad I had the opportunity to know you—Gloria