May 14 - Graduation!

... It sure doesn't feel that long ago I was writing about graduating high school, and now I'm writing about graduating college?!  where does the time go?  Though, as fast as they've gone, these past four years have been some of the craziest, most hectic, and most fun times of my life, and I wouldn't change them at all.  I've done a lot of worrying in my life, way more than I ought, and perhaps there are some things I realize I should've done differently, but overall, I really don't have any regrets about college.  I tried my hardest and I did my best.  I made some mistakes, sure, but I had some successes as well.  I've got some great experiences and learned some valuable lessons about life and myself along the way, and maybe learned a thing or two about architecture too.  Here's hoping the next four years will be just as exciting.

So, pictures from the super long day!

Lisa surprised me with balloons to celebrate graduating!  ... we kept making fun of the cyclops purple smiley faces though, lol.

It was such a looooong day.  Since there are so many graduates at Texas A&M, they split us up into five graduations over the course of two days by colleges.  I graduated from the College of Architecture (one of the smallest colleges of the university) on Friday, May 14 at 2 pm along with the College of Agriculture, one of the biggest colleges on campus (they took probably 3/4 of the graduation).  First though, that morning I had to go to the College of Architecture's hooding and award ceremony where they hooded all the doctorate and masters students, and gave awards to all the undergrads who graduated with honors.  Even with all my B's in studio, I managed to graduate with a 3.71 GPA giving me Magna Cum Laude honors.  *Whoop!*  I was happy about that. ... though not so thrilled at having to go through basically two award ceremonies... this one was mandatory, but funnily enough, nearly all my friends were going for the same reason I had - our parents all said, "but of course you should go, don't you want to? you're getting an award!" and so on, haha.  So we went.  and heck, they gave us free lunch.

Afterwards, we walked through campus and made our way from the Architecture bldg (on the far east end of campus) to Reed Arena where graduation was held (on the far west end of campus, murphy's law).  There I got to stand in more lines and sit through hours of speeches and names being called as we, one by one, walked across and received our diplomas.  ... should've brought a book or an i-pod like some of the others.  oh well.

Jennifer and me ... the irony of graduation: smart people wearing stupid hats.  *sigh* this is the last time, right?

more architecture friends!! (l-r) Grace, Jennifer, Chris, and Erin

... all the graduates, being herded like cattle, waiting to be seated for graduation and testing our alphabet skills in trying to find which lines to stand in ... how many aggies does it take to form lines? lol.

graduation commences!

... it's finally College of Architecture's turn!

... my name is finally called... going through my mind right now? "...walk forward, don't trip, take diploma, don't trip, keep walking, shake hands, smile, DON'T TRIP..."  and another hour later... it's finally over!

After the ceremony was finally over, it was sheer mass chaos as they dismiss us all at once, all the graduates trying to find their families, while all the families and friends are trying to find their graduate admist the sea of tent-sized black gowns and funny hats that all look alike.  And to make matters worse, during the graduation, it started to rain... no, down pour.  It was dropping buckets of water outside.  (oh, and funny side note, on the tag of my graduation gown: "Do not wash, do not dry clean, do not get wet."  great. lol)  Fortunately, I finally found my parents and Danny and miraculously, they had gotten a really great and close to the door parking spot, so we didn't get too soaked.  Afterwards, we stopped by Elena's family (they had really wanted to come, but got sick that week so they didn't want to risk sharing germs) for dinner and photos.  She has a great camera and managed to even get a few pics with all our eyes open!

the happy but tired college graduate!

I kept getting phone calls from friends who couldn't come but still wanted to wish me congrats.

... the parentals.  Thanks for helping me out all these years! Couldn't have done it without y'all!

... and thanks sweetie for sitting through so many agonizing hours of my graduation next to my parents whom you barely know!  It meant a lot!  (hopefully y'all didn't scare each other off too much...)

... more attempts at dips... only moderately successful...

finally! no more icky one-size-fits-all graduation gowns! :D