Bad Timing

My boss wants to meet with me.

Tomorrow morning.

On campus.

Do you know what is happening tomorrow on campus? Oh, certainly you do. Thousands of people and their extended families are coming to campus and parking in all the parking spaces.

And I am thinking that this is the perfect use for online technology. Sit around at home in your academic regalia, watch the speech online, and then download a PDF of your diploma while you wait for the real one to arrive in the mail. Or, really, just skip it. I wouldn't mind some budget cuts that entirely eliminated commencement.

I am probably of a minority opinion here. It is only due to much yelling and coercion that my mother got me to attend my own high school and college graduations. I successfully avoided all commencement exercises when I was in graduate school.

OK, this is really classist and elitist of me, but I think of graduation ceremonies as being kind of tacky and mostly for lower class people. Like, for the sort of people where graduating from high school is a big deal. Those are the kinds of people who go to graduations. In my mind, the sort of people who go to the opera would never go to a graduation.

And so, just like I avoid Walmart, I also try very hard to avoid commencement*. I will have to park in the secret parking lot and avoid the south end of campus.


*Long-time readers will probably recall that my dislike of celebrations and events extends far and wide. My mother has had to pay me thousands of dollars to get me to attend various family weddings. I did not go to my grandmother's funeral. Thanksgiving? I went to Europe. I spent Christmas alone, cleaning my house.