Graduation!

Thursday afternoon was my department's graduation ceremony. It had been raining torrents earlier in the day, then calmed down for the afternoon, which was wonderful because my housebound grandma was planning on attending and didn't want to get wet. The venue was supposed to be outside on a lawn, however the location was changed to the auditorium in the music building. A setting which made things feel much more formal.

The stage

The gathering crowd

When receiving a Master's or a Master of Fine Arts, you have to wear a specific hood for graduation. Well, my graduation sack or whatever you call the robe is either left over from when I graduated high school or from the year I was Harry Potter for Halloween and bought one at the Good Will. I bought the silly hood and think I ruined it when I started trying to figure out how the heck it went. I wound up darting across the room to some friends to plead with them to help me fix it, but one of their responses was, "I have no idea how it goes. I was just gonna hand it to the teacher and hope that they knew what to do with it!"

Trying to sort out the darn hood

Waiting for the ceremony to begin

The professors file in

The Master's students went first, followed by us MFAs. There were only three of us at the ceremony so our section went by quickly and we each said a few words of gratitude after getting "hooded" by the professor of our choice.

Professor Taylor putting on my hood

Giving my thanks

Hugging Professor Douglass

Jarred attended despite recently having surgery on his arm after an incident with his ripstik

With my thesis director, Nick Taylor

The rain paused for the afternoon

Helping one of my professors who wished to remain anonymous. Not really, but the angle of the shot works perfect for that.

With my wonderful siblings

My beautiful family

Beautiful Alex

Peter Parker, Harry Osborn, and Norman Osborn showed up

Grammie! She was so proud and I was so happy to make her proud

My amazing mom and dad

After posing for many pictures, we made our way over to the reception.

An artistic shot of red and white reversed!

Matt!

I don't know what was happening, but we appear amused

Poor Vince burned his hand in a cooking accident then fell and broke his nose on the way to the car to go to the hospital!

We all first met at the orientation three years ago. How time flies!

Beautiful Charanya is built like a model.

Gorgeous Mary and Professor Cox

Under the rainbow!

After the festivities on campus, we all headed over to the Old Spaghetti Factory for dinner.

Heading out

Opening a lovely gift from my aunts and uncle

Yummy half Mizithra and browned butter and marinara sauce

The girls

My big brother

Mmm. Yes. Indeed. Art.

Tracie -- I love your dream of the meadow full of butterflies. You could watch them for hours. You must see the film Bright Star -- there are some amazing butterfly scenes in it!

the other amanda -- Whoo! But actually, having AB- blood means you're the universal recipient, so we're set. And Rachel's doing much better! ;)