Finally, I have done the mythical “walk” thing and graduated! Certainly took long enough. Subject of course to final grades of course, har har. But I’m pretty sure I’ll pass and get the hell away with my diploma.
“Sheepskin at last.” Yeah, I have some idea what Joe Stillwell was talking about.
Just in case you weren’t there, you missed a ton of hooting, hollering, cheering, and many explicitly disallowed artificial noisemakers. Some job security did finding those, ha ha. A couple of nut jobs even set off airhorns during the proceedings. Freaking airhorns! How about that? And here I was thinking it was all about dignity of graduating and getting your degree, with all the formal academic cap and gown (which I have now started calling a dress, because that’s how it felt), and we’re going to set off an AIRHORN! Who’s idea was that, anyway?
The damn toga got stuck on seemingly every damn thing. If I didn’t catch the gigantic sleeves on the ends of stair guard rails, I was accidentally stepping on one of the bottom folds when I stood up from sitting. Ugh, that thing was horrendous. And of course they made us wait outside about a half hour after when they promised they’d let us in, so I ended up roasting in the thing as well.
But I did finally do the whole walk bit, and it turned out reasonably alright. Dr. Gibson was there and waved at me from the stands when I was up there, which I hadn’t been expecting and which was really nice of him. He doesn’t have to show up to these occasions; that he did says a great deal about him. Unfortunately I walked with the Civil Engineers because they didn’t have a proper place for Geomatics (what a surprise when so few people seem to know what it is), but then again they didn’t even give me a piece of ceremonial paper, so there wasn’t much to it I think. Mostly it was a symbol, like so many of these ceremonies are, and the family liked it alot, so it scored well there I think. Was it worth it? I’m still not sure. The hassles of the toga, the planning, the stupidity of walking around the O’Connell center twice to find out my degree wasn’t distinguishably there… It might balance, but I’m not certain. I’m just glad to be shut of it all at last. Never again, though. At the Order of the Engineer ceremony, which I attended early that afternoon, I exchanged sarcastic barbs with my seatmate, a charming girl who I’ll never meet again, about the whole thing, and it seemed that she’d done the sensible thing by telling her parents she was only doing the Order of the Engineer bit only.
In retrospect now, it seems idiotic that I believed they’d give us our degrees at the ceremony. It seems that everyone in town but me knew about this, which of course only makes you feel dumber, eh?
So, I now have something else to set off metal detectors! The Order of Engineer bit basically made us promise not to do bad things, like building weapons of mass destruction for the hell of it, or getting involved with James Bond type villains in plots to destroy the world, or designing and building “technological terrors” complete with planet destroying superweapons and Imperial garrisons. You know, the usual. To symbolize and remind us of this vow not to use our precious knowledge for evil, we each received a plain stainless steel ring for “the little finger of the working hand.” I, of course, am happy with any excuse to increase my magnetic resonance; but I’ve also began devising uses for the little thing. So far, I’ve come up with steel knuckle, knocking device for metal on metal, and excuse to get out of manual labor (oh I can’t wield the shovel, my pretty rings on my pretty college hands prohibit it). Can you the reader help me out?
I also interviewed with the Boy Scouts from Texas, and I got offered the job on conclusion of the interview. How badass is that? And after the guy told me he’d done ~90 interviews of people trying to get this type of position! I’ll make $200 a week plus “all the food I can stomach” according to the camp director who interviewed me, and isn’t life wonderful? And the accommodiations–dude, they have CARPET! I mean, carpet! Shit, CARPET! How wild is that?! Oh yeah, and blah blah blah common bathroom, bed, air conditioning. But man! Carpet! That is some crazy shit right there.
I’m to report in on May 28 at 15:00, and we’ll have a staff week where I get a refresher in how to do CPR and other camp stuff. We’ll also do some roaming over the trails to familiarize ourselves, plus check out equipment for trips later on. In the interview, the director said they were in the process of putting together proper itineraries for marketing themselves, and making the whole backpacking process better, less casual. In my opinion, the best way to put it is slicker, sleeker, and more professional with some kind of leveling system, to make sure newbies can go out and not get killed doing hills beyond their ability. So, not only do I get the summer I wanted, but I get to help them do their itineraries! I just wax eloquent about things like I always do (wink wink), and it becomes a plan that gets done! Whoo!
To gain employment for the summer in a temporary position involving backpacking someplace without swamps.”
So, I’ll get to go roaming around out there. The temperature won’t go much past the 60s according to the director, so I’ll just need a blanket or something instead of my heavy bag at night. And no overhead cover; no rain in the desert. They might even do some trailblazing on some new land they got! All kinds of good fun to be had. Plus, no MREs. Fresh food from a grocery store, which means we get to chase the brats–I mean, Scouts– into learning how to cook! Yes!
I’m stoked. I’ll have a good vacation, and I might even gain a little bit of cash! I think I’ll act like a crazy foreign exchange student while I’m there, and give Floridians the “good” name they deserve. Heehee! And I’ll blame it all on being born in Miami-Dade, haha!
Very freaking awesome, James!!! Ubercongrats!!!