Graduation

I am officially a college graduate now. Yay!!! Today has been such an amazing, sad, exciting, busy, tiring, great day. All the graduates met at the Wren building at 10:45 to go on a walk across campus. With all the cameras flashing in my eyes the whole time, I felt like Britney Spears (minus the crack, of course). We walked from the Wren courtyard to the Hall where the graduation ceremony took place. All in all, the ceremony was very exciting. Most of the speakers did a great job, and although it dragged at times, it was definitely an awesome experience. The highlight, in my opinion, was when Sam Sadler, our Vice President of Student Affairs (who is retiring after 41 at the College) was surprised with the honor of having the University Center renamed in honor of him. He is perhaps the most beloved individual in the College's history, and you can tell how much he really cares for his students. It was a touching moment.

After the big ceremony, we separated into our majors and had separate smaller ceremonies around campus where we received our diploma. Ours was in the big lecture hall in Washington Hall where I had Biological Anthropology and Intro to Archaeology. There were only maybe 35 of us Anthro graduates, and we each had the opportunity to say something upon receiving our degrees. I thanks all my professors, with special thanks to my awesome advisor, Fred Smith, who taught me the Anthropological side of alcohol and wrote me an amazing PC recommendation letter. I also wished my mom a happy Mother's Day. Overall, it was a nice ceremony. I enjoyed the more intimate, relaxed atmosphere of the smaller group, and I was happy to see again some of the professors who have inspired me so much while at the College, as well as my fellow Anthro majors. I will definitely take the lessons they taught me and the spirit of Anthropology with me in my travels.

My time at William and Mary has come to an end, and I have mixed emotions. I am happy to graduation and begin the next phases of my life, but I know I will miss the many people that have filled my life these past four years. I don't think I got to say goodbye to many of them like I wanted to, and hopefully I will be able to stay in contact with as many as possible. I will try to e-mail those I didn't get a chance to say "so long" to in the days to come. It is weird to think that I probably won't see 99% of them ever again. But at least now I can relax a little. Mission accomplished!