Graduation Day (Part 2)

Morning came early! I could barely open my eyes. My parents were already up, already showered. I let Sean sleep a little longer and took a shower. After getting done with that, I got dressed, and (with my mom's help) made Sean some coffee.

As usual, with my parents being involved, we were one of the first families to show up for graduation. We parked in the old shuttle bus lot and made our way to the bleachers. Sean bought me an orchid lei, which was absolutely beautiful. I'd always wanted to wear one after seeing them in the past. Sean and I wandered around the mostly desolate Spartan stadium taking pictures. Also, we bought a giant pretzel and shared it. Around 9am, all of the graduates had to make their way to the various staging areas.

Not wanting to leave my fiance, I grudgingly made my way to the Social Sciences crowd. Our of the 29 history graduates, only 9 of us actually showed up for the big university-wide graduation. With it being so early, I fully understood why.

After waiting around for 45 minutes, our group finally began the long march to our seating area. On the way there, we were given our free license plate frames and had our pictures taken (I haven't gotten mine in the mail yet.) Our commencement speaker was Dr. Lily Wong Fillmore ("an international authority on literacy and second language learning and a life-long champion of helping immigrant children with language skills.") After her speech, the honorary degrees were given to Tommie Smith (Bronze Medal, 200 meter dash) and John Carlos (Gold Medal, 200 meter dash.) You may remember them from the 1968 Mexico City Olympics. Both San Jose State graduates, they protested the state of civil rights in the United States by raising black gloved fists during the medal ceremony. Although the political statement was incredibly unpopular in 1968 (some people thought their medals should be revoked), with the passing decades, they earned more and more respect.

At this point, the sun was beginning to sort of come out. It was a chilly, cloudy San Jose morning. We graduates were all getting antsy. The crazy business majors were trying to get "the wave" going. All around me, people were on their cell phones. Phuong skipped graduation because it was too early for her to wake up. Every once in awhile, if I looked around the kid in front of me with the big block head, I could make out Sean and my parents.

But there was more waiting. First, we had to wait for all the master's candidates to be confirmed and hooded. This took forever in the business and engineering colleges.

Finally, it was our turn. The College of Social Sciences went last, but when we were announced and confirmed, we all screamed, waved, and jumped up and down. The communications majors threw confetti!

And just like that, we were officially Graduated!! All of that hard work over all those years finally paid off. I made my way to my family and we made our way back to the car. By the time we got back to the house, my uncle and grandparents were already there. I introduced Sean to my Uncle, but he'd already met everyone else. Also, after a little bit of time, Preyma, my oldest and bestest friend ever showed up. I felt so bad because she had to take BART and then get a ride from her dad.

In addition to my orchid lei, I also got flowers from my dad and Preyma. It figures that with this rapid influx of flowers, the vases would all be in boxes in San Diego. I had to use a water pitcher for one bouquet.

For food, we had my grandma's famous macaroni salad, barnecued chicken and hot dogs, vegetarian pizza from Pizza Fresh (the best pizza in the entire world!!!), and Sean's legendary curry! My maternal grandma absolutely loved the curry, as she has an affinity for spicy food. Don't forget, dessert!

We had a giant chocolate cake with chocolate frosting and chocolate filling! So so yummy! It said "Congratulations for the graduate, 2005!", and had yellow and blue roses on it. As I cut the cake, I made sure that I got a rose.

Around 6pm, everyone started heading home. Sean and I drove Meera to Fremont so she could catch BART back to Berkeley. We were both so tired that night that we could barely stay awake past 10pm.

The next day we'd have to get an early start, because we were driving up to Sacramento to visit with Collin. I was afraid we'd hit serious Memorial Day traffic, but we got off super easy. Sean bought peppered mangos, which I'd never had before. (I'd never even heard of such a thing.) We all went to see "Madagascar," since "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" wasn't showing. It was pretty funny for a kid's movie, can you imagine that Chris Rock is the main character? Afterwards, we went and had ice cream at Marble Slab. The sweets were followed by lots of shopping in these two outdoor malls.

I didn't think about it until after the fact. I could just imagine Sean's son going home with dinner ready. Only, of course, he wouldn't be hungry because he had just eaten a sundae as big as his head. (It was pretty close, actually.) Oops! Anyway, we had a really good time, and like our trip North, we hit very little traffic on the way home.

The next day, Monday, was spent packing up my dad's van with quite a few of my belongings. My dad and I wanted to take Sean to Tsuguru, our favourite Japanese restaurant. But like most of the restaurants we could think of, they were closed for the holiday. We ended up having vegetarian pizza from Round Table, left over macaroni salad, and of course, cake.

Unfortunately, we couldn't have any of Sean's curry, because it met a dark end. My dad was attempting to put it in a container and place it in the icebox when it slipped from his fingers. I was so sad to see the splattered curry, and I felt bad for Sean having put so much effort into it. That night, Sean and I finally got to see"The Grudge," which we'd been trying to see for months.

It spooked me good! Silly me, I thought I was over my fear of the dark.

The next day, we set off on a long drive to sunny San Diego!

xoxoxox Tragic Tuyen