Say It Ain't So

I have no idea where to start - the Readers' Digest version would be, my parents came, I graduated (twice), I ate some fabulous food, my friend Otto visited and now Junie is here. Read on for more details (cuz there are loads of happy, champagne-soaked ones ;))

Where to begin?! My parents & grandma arrived (fresh from their fan-tabulous 12-day European cruise, I might add) on May 14 and we had two jam-packed days of graduation festivities that would make any parent-type satisfied. My family thrives on all things graduation – the buying of the flowers, the rabid picture-taking, the framing of the diploma, the light schmooze – so Columbia gave them everything they could have hoped for (and braved a 9-hour drive from Toronto for).

The first day, May 16, was the Columbia-wide ceremony, which is kinda madness because it’s for EVERY graduate of Columbia, from undergrad to med school to us LLMs, so it was literally 40,000 (!) strong people & graduates on the lawn of Columbia – the whole thing was outdoors – every inch of grass/stone between Low & Butler Libraries was filled with people –

and I thought it would be boring, speech after speech, but it was actually fun because they took turns calling out each faculty, and then the respective grads would stand up and do their thing – throw confetti, toss beachballs, the medical students tossed latex gloves in the air, the dentists waved big foam toothbrushes, and from afar it looked like the journalists threw newspapers. Us law students got lame squishy mini-gavels, that wasn’t so effective. And then at the end, they played Frank Sinatra’s “New York, New York” (classic!) over the speakers. Nice!! – something I’ve never experienced.

Then on May 17 it was the Law school ceremony, also outdoors but under three giant tents on the south lawn. It actually wasn’t as fun, just one speech after another, and perhaps we were tired from the day before. But as soon as it was over (we had a piddling 2-seconds of fame walking across the stage to shake the Dean’s hand, that was useless) there was a grade-A, kick-ass reception.