A long update, broken into cuts for convenience's sake

[theyellowhobbit]

Friday Night:
gimmelgirl and her husband visited Penn this past Shabbat, so I got to meet them. We all davened at CJC. Services were pretty dead, which was sad. But oh well. Dinner was fun (dr_whom and C. were there as well), and we sang, and I finally got the Bentsching harmony to work! (We had enough people singing in the same key.) And they had actual meat, and eventually potato kugel. Probably the dining hall's attempt to fool the parents into thinking we always eat like this on Shabbat.
I went home afterwards, read, practiced my haftarah, and went to bed.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Saturday:
I read Haftarah for CJC, and only messed up once. The chumash I was reading from puts vowels into God's Tetragramatron name, which most chumashim don't do. So I was confused in this one instance where I actually noticed it and thought I was supposed to pronounce it, and said it, not realizing until it was too late. But I just went on, and hopefully no one noticed. I didn't get struck by lightning.

Then cynara_linnaea made a lunch with her family for her sister's birthday. It was dairy, but it was still quite good. We ran into trouble with the oven, which was turned on to heat things. We could only put stuff in or take it out after the light had gone on, so we wouldn't be making the oven turn on. And we didn't know how long the cycle goes (it detects heat, so it heats up until x temperature, then turns off, then when the temperature decreases it turns on again) so we had to wait some time. cynara_linnaea's sister also had a phone which was possessed by a demon. I tried an impromptu exorcism. It didn't work.

Then there was Munchkin in the afternoon. I had to leave early to meet my family, who came in around 5pmish.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Family:

My family came in. I gave them a tour of locust walk, and then it started to rain really hard, so I had to stop the tour. lopaanre wanted to go to the Wawa, so I showed him where it was. I don't know what I'll do without Wawa (it's a Pennsylvania/Delaware/South Jersey thing)!

When shabbat ended I checked my e-mail, and then we packed up as much of my stuff as we could.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sunday:

On Sunday we had the anthropology ceremony, where the majors had to walk across the stage, and we shook Dr. Urban's hand, and he and Dr. Erickson talked about us, and gave the special people gifts/recognition. Unfortunately, nowhere in any of the graduation ceremonies does it note that I got honors in my major or that I graduated Cum Laude. Oh well.

Also disappointing was that I didn't get to see Janet or Ben, who are the teachers I'm closest with. I did get to have a good conversation with Dr. Saboloff, though. I like him, even though I don't know him so well, since I was only in a big intro anthro lecture with him. (I got an A, though, and impressed him with an intelligent question last year. And he always says hi when he sees me in the hall.) And I gave Gerianne a trowel.

We went out to lunch at Yitzi Pe-king with platypuses and my Grandma's friends the Blums. The Blums gave me a [monetary] graduation present, which I wasn't expecting and they really didn't need to. I spent most of lunch talking to platypuses. And I got the Shabu-Shabu, which is this crazy dish with a boiling cauldron of soup, where you put in the food and it cooks it!

And platypuses got me a cute bear and a card that plays the graduation song (I think it's called "Pomp and Circumstance.") The card scared me at first!

Then I went back and packed and packed and packed. lopaanre and Dad slept. Mom and I did most of the work, and Grandma was off with the Blums.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Graduation:

I walked with anthro, so I got to be with the anthro majors, and we could sit wherever we wanted within our major. So GM and I hung out. She forgot to bring knitting, so I gave her my giant recycled silk shawl, while I worked on a kippah. We had an interesting speaker who was a Nobel prize winner and Penn alum. The ceremony got boring when we had to sit through everyone walking across the stage. It went by major in size order, starting with the smallest and ending with the largest. Anthro is relatively small, with 36 graduating majors and 60-something total. History, English, Psych, and Bio are all huge, with over 100 students in each (I think. They took FOREVER).

Afterwards, we went out to Ben and Jerry's (lopaanre's graduation present to me) and packed up the car. I headed over to North afterwards, to give people things I had borrowed from them. And then I used the wireless internet. Yay wireless!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Monday Morning:

I woke up early so I could visit Janet before graduation. I gave her a trowel as well. And I got to talk to her for a bit. She said to bring by my family after the ceremony.

Then I met G.M. and we went to Wawa before the ceremony, and I bought Entemann's cookies to give to people/eat myself since I had no breakfast.

We then went to the Super-Block to line up. I looked for Ben, but couldn't find him, since it was hard to see with all the people around. It was very crowded, and it didn't help that I'm short...

The procession took forever, between lining up and everything else. People kept stopping to take photos, which I found to be mildly annoying. My dad kept calling to try to find me, but we weren't anywhere near where he was for a while, though he eventually found me. I also got to see Joan, Rabbi Mike, and then Janet, Gerianne and Larissa (another museum person). I spotted Ben as we sat down and the PhDs were still processing, though then he went off to the side somewhere.

The ceremony itself was uneventful. James Baker was uninspiring, and you could tell where he was going with his speech. Ruth Bader-Ginsberg had a cool top hat. Everyone was clothed in regalia. GM knitted, and I spun and later knitted.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

After the Ceremony:

After the ceremony, G.M. and I went up to Ben, and Ben gave me a hug. I told Ben that I wanted him to meet my family, so I said we could all meet up in front of the museum in a few minutes.

Eventually I managed to make my way to the Museum, and of course my family wanted to take a billion photos. I'm posting some below.

And yay Ben! We all talked for a while about archaeological stuff. And Ben told me not to spend 9 years on my PhD like he did. And Ben's sister was around for a little bit.

Then we went in, and looked for Monge, who was not in her office or anywhere on the 3rd floor. We headed out down the stairs, and I suggested we stop at the 2nd floor to see if she was in the cafe...

And there was Janet! So I got to talk to her for a bit as well. I also forget that conversation.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Going Home:

Before going home, we had lunch in Hillel. Yay food! Little did I know it was the last I'd eat for 8 hours (at least in real food.) Me, a_jewfro and levana_b were sitting together, so it was the Head Mash table. Though I'm done mashing forever.

The ride home had no kosher restaurants, though I got a frozen yogurt in new jersey. I got pretzels and craisins at the store in Connecticut, while the rest of my family ate at McDonald's.

We got stuck in a bit of traffic as well. But it wasn't too bad. I spent an hour of the drive on the phone with E-Hobbit, since I passed by her town.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Today:

I had the interview for my summer camp job this morning, and then I got fingerprinted this afternoon (Anyone in RI who works with kids must be fingerprinted according to state law). They have this cool software, but the Police Officer working it was having trouble, since it wanted first the thumb, and then all four fingers of the hand, and of course, I didn't have all four fingers. But she managed to figure out how to change the settings so it would leave out the index finger on each hand. My guess is they rarely run into problems like this.

I also visited Barrington High School to visit all my old teachers. Mrs. LaParle was impressed by my spinning, and I gave her some websites where she could buy a spindle and roving. And everyone was impressed by the fact that I'm going to Harvard next year. It was very weird coming back after 4 years, but CK was visiting as well, so it was less awkward with her there.

Now I'm going to pick up my mom from work and go shopping. But before that, pictures!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Janet and me:


Parents, Grandma, and me:


Ben and me in our regalia of awesomeness (well, his is awesome. Mine is boring.):



Overall, graduation was an amazing experience. And I'm one of few people in the world who got to graduate with their advisor. Which was pretty darn awesome. I'm not Ben's equal yet, but for the most part he treats me as such. He's definitely the reason I'm actually going into archaeology and am getting a PhD eventually. And he's just a great person (well, except for when he gave me incomprehensible edits and then was unreachable and I had no clue what to do on my thesis...but that was only a few days in this semester. They were just badly timed days!) I'll miss him and Janet. Hopefully there will be just as amazing people at Harvard next semester.

Comments

[leftyjew.livejournal.com]

Mazal tov!!!

[sen-ichi-rei.livejournal.com]

thanks!

[tourogal.livejournal.com]

Mazel Tov!

Cumberland Farms is just like Wawa, and is the New England incarnation of the convenience store. I saw at least 4 on my Cambridge/Boston/Braintree/Brighton trip.

[sen-ichi-rei.livejournal.com]

Thanks.

You're right that Cumberland farms would be the closest thing in New England to Wawa, but they're different. It's hard to explain.

Also, at least at home, nothing is open 24/7 like the Wawas at Penn.

[sen-ichi-rei.livejournal.com]

By the way, I love your icon.

[boroparkpyro.livejournal.com]

congratulations!

[sen-ichi-rei.livejournal.com]

thanks!

[briansue.livejournal.com]

ahh it's so crazy to think that i met you in high school and now you're out of college! congrats!!

[sen-ichi-rei.livejournal.com]

Thanks.

Yeah, it is crazy. I feel so old! And everything that I used to think of as "recent" (i.e. NFTY memories) are actually now 4-8 years back! Is that not insane?