So I graduated over the weekend. It was an very nice ceremony- mercifully brief. This is because a) the speeches were short, sweet, to the point and b) there weren't a lot of graduates as my college is small (although the overall university is ridiculously large). There were about 50 people in my major, but about 35-40 of us actually showed up. The hilarious part is that most of the people I graduated with from my major were in my last lab class I just finished. So we spent the whole time before like, "ZOMG rn't u glad that we're done w/ that 1 class!?"

We're mature like that.

The dean was wearing a bitchin' top-hat thing with his robes (seriously, it looked like friggin' Hogwarts in thur).

The commencement speaker was an evolution-development (evo-devo) professor from U of WI-Madison (oh the irony- a Badger giving commencement at a Gopher graduation, many snickers were had) named Dr. Sean B. Carroll. I didn't know who he was, but I was talking to Dr. G (my old boss from school) one day in March and he was like, "So yeah- I TA'd for the guy @ Madison when I was in grad school, he's a friggin' genius!" So naturally I was like, "ZOMG I MUST GO TO GRADUATION!ELEVENTYBILLION!1!"

His speech was great- short and funny. He basically told the life story of Roy Chapman Andrews (a naturalist who was the basis for Indiana Jones- so obviously Dr. Carroll is a total geek, just like Dr. G, which is awesome). He also talked about his childhood and how when he was 11 he told his Uncle Dick that he wanted to be a Zoologist when he grew up and how is uncle said, "A zoologist?! There's no money in that!" to which he goes, "Needless to say I didn't listen to him...I think we all know a few "Dicks" in our time..."

Many lulz were had.

So then they started reading off the names (not alphabetical, we went up by major and just handed over cards that had our name on them to the speaker to read them. Fortunately my name was pronounced correctly. So I'm walkin' across the stage and all of a sudden Dr. G was there! I hadn't seen him before the ceremony nor could I see him up on the stage from where I was, and all of a sudden thar he was! So he walks up to me and gives me a big ol' hug saying congratulations and stuff. Dr. B (another one of my profs from this year, also a collaborator w/ Dr. G) was all like, "Congrats dude!" Anyway, I started getting a little teary, thanked him profusely and moved on, thanking each random person I shook hands with most profusely. Awkwardly stood for the graduation pictures...etc.

The student speeches were mercifully short.

All of this was done in less than 2 hours. We had ~300 graduates. So it was pretty friggin' great that it was so nice and short.

It was a good time.

Now I feel weird. And suddenly- I'm really going to miss CBS/the U of MN, which is bizarre considering how much I've bitched about it over the years. I also am really starting to miss working at the lab again. *sigh*

C'est la vie.

*Well, until September when I move to Rochester for the CLS program. W00t.