This morning I woke up at 5:15. Though I would have preferred to go back to sleep, the head was awake and there was no turning back. That didn't mean I had to get out of bed. Oh, no. For 75 comfortable minutes I lay in the dark, covers pulled up to my chin, pondering the thoughts of the day.
One of those thoughts was of my friend Nancy, whose graduation from nursing school was slated to begin at 8:30. Nancy and I are cousins-in-law, sort of, because we’re divorced from members of the same family. We met face-to-face only last spring. Back then, and through summer, fall and winter, her 12 years of singlehood guided me through my rocky first.
Even though I didn’t have a clue where the nursing-graduation building was on the UVSC campus, I got there on time, squeezing my behind onto a bleacher amid a family who was saving seats and was hyper reluctant to make room for me. I sat through speeches and music and other blah blah blah so I could watch Nancy walk for her diploma. I did this because I think life events are important to attend, things like births (I've seen eight, only five of which were my own children), deaths (missed one by 35 minutes, darn it), graduations (countless). You know, all the milestones.
And, I learned some things at school this morning, because that’s what you do when you attend school, even if it’s only a graduation. I learned that:
The head of the school's health sciences department swears. Low-level swear words, but swear words just the same.
He also made a big ol' blunder while addressing the audience -- something about UVSC being a second-class institution. He stopped when his head caught up with his mouth, then plowed on, swearing again while saying he hoped no journalists had recorded his remark. (They had).
Maybe I’d like to go back to school to study community health. (A fleeting thought that seemed like a good idea for the five minutes it took all the community health graduates to get their diplomas, but doesn’t make a whole lot of long-term sense for me, when you think about it.)
From my vantage point, all the graduates looked alike, which explains why I took videos of someone crossing the stage who wasn’t Nancy.
1 comment:
My guess is they won't ask him to speak again. I have mixed feelings about graduation. You work so hard for something and you expect some grand feeling or amazing thing to happen once you get that piece of paper....and then it is just self-fulfillment and a piece of paper. It's great, but not quite the fireworks you expect. I've thought about all the things I would like to go back and study and then I realize my brain is tired. It is my season to rest from school.
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