Graduation!

Whew! What a weekend! It was pretty busy as I worked, visited with family from out of town (Oklahoma and Northern California), graduated, then drove to San Diego for Mother's Day. I have a ton of things I want to blog about, but haven't had the time (or energy when I get the time). For tonight, I figured I would post an update.

As I think I mentioned before, I decided not to attend the all-school commencement ceremony. I had various reasons: it was 110 degrees last year, they name everyone, the list goes on... I wouldn't have missed any of the 3 Stanford graduation ceremonies I went to as an undergrad, but I felt grad school was a bit different. And Stanford's graduation has quite a reputation** so there was no way I wanted to miss it LOL!

Anyway, for grad school I just wanted to participate in whatever reception/ceremony the math department held. It was all very last minute, though. It took some frantic calls and arrangements, but my parents and Summer were able to attend the reception with me:)

I was happy as I really wanted my parents and professors to meet! And I find out so much interesting stuff about both my parents and my professors listening to the conversations. The Dean (who was also my advisor) said some things to my parents that he'd never said to me that made me feel really great, so all in all it was a great day!

And then there's the story that my parents never fail to mention when I go with them to parties and such. It's something I never really tell people. I don't know why; I just don't! And it gets really embarrassing when my parents do tell people. Anyway, the story prompted a nameless person to joke about getting me to contact this person to donate enough money to name the School of Mathematical Sciences after him.

Who is it you ask? Well, I'm not going to make it quite so easy! I've been in an evil mood lately. So I'm going to post a picture (though it's a bit blurry) of us taken my freshman year in college at a track meet. I think this will be enough to identify the person:P

Oh and I suppose I should give you the short version of the story...We had freshman writing class together and were friendly during the time we were both at Stanford. I even won a cheesy award at my 10-year High School Reunion because of it LOL! Anyway, here's the pic (I'm the one in the hat with the blue shirt on):




**At Stanford, the procession into the graduation ceremony is known as the "Wacky Walk" and is by no means orderly. The year before my graduation, someone came in to the stadium naked and slid on a slip 'n' slide. They banned nakedness after that, though. And during the ceremony? The Band (who also has a reputation for insanity) passes out "Bingo" cards (with words likely to be used by the commencement speaker). Beach balls fly...All of this while some really important person (Ted Coppel my graduation year) speaks...You get the picture?