Graduation 2010

The ceremony was fun. I was so glad to be sitting with my cohort - the people I had suffered with for the past 3 years - and it was great to wear the Harry Potter robe and hear the speakers. I was kind of dreading sitting through a long program, but it was fantastic. The student speaker talked about persevering and how the Australian Olympic row team had one member - Lay Down Sally, who gave up at the last quarter of the race by laying down in the canoe. Tragic.

Then, J. Willard Marriott told the story of his father - son of a sheepherder who knew his dad would work for the bank for the rest of his life and his only way out was to get an education. So he worked hard, went and started a restaurant in Washington D.C. and eventually expanded to hotels.

The cool parts about the ceremony included, but were not limited to: Dean Cornia had different groups of people stand - Stand if you met your spouse at BYU, stand if you are an international student, stand if you've served a mission. Standing with all of the returned missionaries felt powerful. After walking across the stage, they had all 600 of us sign a piece of the Marriott center basketball court floor. I signed my name right above the M in Marriott because I wanted my name to be noticed if people were reading names. But it wasn't reachable from a normal angle, so I wrote it upside down from the top. Only a graduate school graduate could have pulled it off.

Finished! Hallelujah, this degree is finished for this girl. How am I going to celebrate? Have another baby in October, that's how!