Friday, June 12, 2009

Graduation Day

Today I earned my fourth diploma, and my second Master's degree. Yet, I still forgot which direction to put on my mortar board, despite it having a label clearly indicating "FRONT OF CAP." Nice.

As I was waiting to process into the quad with the rest of the degree candidates, I attempted to fix the memory of the moment in my mind. The breeze was blowing lightly, the sun shining brightly but not too intensely, and the cheery sounds of the bagpipes and drum corps were floating across the distance from my location to the stage. It was not until just then that the gravity of the achievement I had accomplished truly hit me. I have earned a degree from a prestigious graduate institution, despite having had a child after one quarter of course work. I attended the rest of the program part-time after taking one quarter off. I did take two of my classes pass-fail as allowed under my program's requirements, but in the classes I took for grades I got very respectable marks. I wrote a 35-page thesis mostly at night after my baby went to bed for the night. Before that, I read great works of literature while breastfeeding. While it was not my first advanced degree, I feel that I have worked the hardest and therefore am most proud of this one. I can only feel immense gratitude to God and my family for supporting me and seeing me through my struggles and doubts to complete what I had started.

Haiku News

Obama's grandma
tries to meet fans in Kenya--
one busy lady!

Tetris's birthday--
Puzzle game turns 25.
But Olympic? No.

Speaking of birthdays,
Bush 41 parachutes
and turns 85.

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