December 19, 2006 11:17 pm

College Graduate

:note: Harry Potter IV DVD

To begin, Daniel is all better. He took the next day off of work to recuperate and felt better stomach-wise and then promptly came down with a cold. He’s still snuffly, but he’s feeling okay now, which is awesome.

My parents flew in Thursday evening and we spent a lot of time walking back and forth between their bed & breakfast and our apartment and the grocery store and whatnot. I had a bit of a shock when we looked at their room and I realized there was only one bed – they somehow failed to tell me that my two younger brothers would be staying with us instead of them. Ha ha ha. :P

The portfolio show went very well. I think some of the business people wrote me off because I already have a job, but right now that’s sort of okay with me. I was mostly there as a formality anyway (it’s required for graduation) and the purpose is to make some contacts, which I think I did. A lot of people were inquiring about freelancing, which I haven’t totally ruled out but ye gods I am not interested in more work right now. My goal is to make the next two weeks as painless as possible before I start full time the 1st of the year, and I can’t see freelancing helping that at all. I had a really good response to my branding/identity (if you’re listed as a friend on Flickr you’ve probably already seen a preview of my business card) and lots of people told me it was very nicely done. My department director told me I’ve done the department proud. :)

My cousin, her husband, and their baby showed up unexpectedly! I sent them the mass “I am graduating” email but didn’t exactly expect them to drop by even though they don’t live very far away, but I’m so glad they did. I hadn’t met the baby yet and he’s so cute! Very serious (didn’t crack a smile the whole time I saw him) but adorable and incredibly well-behaved. I’ll see them again around Christmas.

I got to see my friend Keith! And Ben H and Ben D and Stacey and other graduated-types I haven’t seen in a while. My family got to meet all the people that meant a lot to me in school, especially Chris and Angie. I’m really going to miss both of them.

Graduation also went well. I graduated with honors! I hadn’t even thought about it until I was checking in at the ceremony location and received some silver cords, and some time later noticed that not everyone had them. The president of the school mispronounced my last name when he was recognizing the honors students, but oh well. People tend to try to make it sound a lot more elegant than it actually is – you can either emphasize the second syllable and make it sound refined, or emphasize the first and sound backwoods-ish. It’s the backwoods sound you’re going for, and I think people don’t want to offend so they try the other way first. It bothers me but I’m used to it. The guy announcing names as we walked across the stage said it correctly so I think that’s what counts.

The speakers had varying degrees of interestingness. The school president’s speech was about some 16th century Indian philosopher whose name I can’t recall, and it was meant to be inspiring. The keynote speaker was some guy from Germany who was one of those “I’m young and wildly successful” types who spent the last X number of years sleeping on floors and working for free to get into the companies he wanted to work for. He talked a lot about himself and made several references to purple Speedos. I think all the parents loved him and the graduates were sort of lukewarm. The student speaker’s speech was the best because it was short and to-the-point, and wasn’t pretentious or boring.

The weekend was very hectic and was not much of a break before going back to work on Monday. I got to learn about 401(k) plans at work and have to figure out what I want to do to plan for retirement. RETIREMENT. That is so far off my radar I can’t even begin to describe it. I know I’m going to enroll, but I have to decide how much I’m going to contribute and what sort of plan I want to use. I understand very little about my own finances so this is all new to me. I think it stems from being bad at math. On the whole I am very good with my money, I just don’t get things like investing and consolidating and financing. I can’t even imagine owning stock. So! Fun with finances.

I’m not sure what else to talk about. There was so much that went on this past week that I can’t even begin to describe it. I’m a college graduate. I have a job. I feel old. I know I’m not, but I feel like I am.

I know I’ve been really crap about even being online lately, and for that I apologize. Really though, after spending over 9 hours a day on the computer, the last thing I want to do is come home and get on the computer again, so my online presence has suffered as of late. I finally caught back up on my Qbee stuff on Sunday, and even participated in the Christmas activity. My one-year Qbee anniversary is coming up (if it hasn’t already passed – all I know is that it’s sometime in December) and I feel bad that I’d been slacking, but I think I’ll be able to keep up now that I’ll only have work to worry about.

Honestly, the thing I’m looking forward to most about being done with school is the lack of homework. I go to work, I do my job, and I leave it there until I come back to work again. I’m not required to finish stuff at home on my own time, unpaid. This makes me indescribably happy.

I don’t have an introspective or particularly worthwhile note to end this post on, but I’d just like to say thank you to all of you who sent me an email or a message over the last couple of weeks. It means a lot to me.

*throws cap in the air*

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