Day Of

Sunday I graduated. Well, I had my first graduation anyway. The way NYU does their graduation is by having a graduation for each school, mine is College of Arts and Science, and then having a graduation for the entire University as well. We had our school graduation at Madison Square Garden, in the Arena, which was pretty cool. We were right in the middle of the floor, which was amazing. It was a pretty emotional day. I think college graduation is so much more significant than high school. Going from college to the real world is huge. You no longer have anyone looking out for you, no parental support, nothing. You are a real person, with completely your own life. I mean, it's a huge deal. Of course, I'm choosing to ignore the real world for a little while longer. Although, in a few ways my year off is a even more in depth look at the real world. Anyway, I got there, and we were separated by last name, just A-L and K-Z, but it meant I couldn't sit with S. my boy. I did get to sit with a lot of my best friends though. I never cried, but it was very emotional. The ceremony itself wasn't that amazing. Our President gave the worst speech ever, as did our faculty speaker who used the time to make a political statement. Our valedictorian gave a wonderful speech tho, and it was probably the most appropriate. We then finally got to walk up. It took forever, what with 1700 students, but it was wonderful to hear our names called and walk across the stage. It was all so fast. After the ceremony, my parents were supposed to come for picture time and to finally meet S's parents. He hadn't wanted them to meet originally because his parents don't approve of us dating, long story, but he had said that morning it would be good. But, my father left early to go get the car, without a cell phone. Turned out we had remembered the wrong street by 2 and he walked around for two hours, found a pay phone and called my mom. Of course she was frantic by this point and I got no after graduation pictures and the parents never met. I was beyond distraught. I mean, streaming tears upset. Not with my father, I would have left too, but just at the situation. I felt that I was at the only time in my life where this huge scary wonderful transition was being recognized, and I wasn't even allowed to have it, it was made to seem unimportant. However, after a few hours I was able to stop being upset and laugh it off a bit. It's just such an emotional time, leaving S, all my friends for that matter, the first city I've really loved, my whole life. I spent most of that night sleeping and crying-I was exhausted. However, it was a good day, if an emotional one.