Graduation Is Over!

Our youngest daughter's (first) college graduation is over and we are home. Way too much happened to detail all of it so highlights will have to suffice for now.

Grammie, Deb, Me, Jean

1. Jean picked me up at work Friday at 2 PM, I left my car in the parking garage at work and we drove down in Jean's mini-van.

2. We stayed in a bed and breakfast (more later) that was about a mile or so from the college - Deb was allowed to join us for Sabbath morning breakfast (without an additional charge).

3. The speakers on Sabbath were excellent. Friday night was alright but in comparision not quite as good. The Commencement speaker was also very good with bulleted points and she has a moving personal story (not an SDA - naturalized Mexican of lower class, rose to be the treasurer of the US - the Seventh-day Adventist church has been there for her at a very difficult time in her life). The Commencement speaker was given an honorary doctorate today - she was very moved by this.

4. Lois Peters (black entrepreneur with a LOT of spirit and charisma) was the Sabbath morning speaker. She is on the college board and received an honorary doctorate from the college today.

5. The nursing student/graduate pinning ceremony was VERY good - clearly the high point of the weekend for us. Jean pinned Deb using her own pin from the same college/school of nursing! You have to be a nurse to pin a student/graduate. She also received "Lamp of Learning" pin presented by Mrs. Diller, which was to honor her for serving as a tutor (that came with a Dell Axim!). She also was honored as one of two who received an "Academic Achievement Award" - she was #2 in her class. The speaker for the pinning service was a college classmate of mine who was conferring with others on the platform during the service trying to determine if she was indeed the daughter of her former classmate!

Deb After Pinning - Recessional Notice that she has two pins - Lamp of Learning (her right) and School of Nursing pin (her left).


6. One of Deb's friend's had a cafe card with lots of monetary value (shared with him by his roommate) and fed our family two meals in the cafeteria saving use easily about $70.

7. After supper Sabbath evening and changing clothes we headed to the girls' dorm to load Deb's things in the van to bring north. When I checked in at the front desk they said I had to be out of the dorm in about 20 minutes! Did we ever move! We got over half of her things downstairs and loaded in the van in that 20 - 25 minutes during a relative lull in the disaster-producing rain that fell (the governor of Massachussetts declared a state of emergency today, as did the governors of NH and Maine - our home area in Maine was spared the brunt of the storm but did get a month's worth of rain Friday and Sabbath nonetheless).

8. Back at the bed and breakfast a party was going on - 50 guests honoring a graduating senior in the banquet/breakfast room. There is very limited parking at this place so when we arrived back we found no place to park. The proprietress called her adult son to come move his car so we could park. She said those at the party had been told they could meet until 10 PM. We expressed hope that would be adhered to, and she demurred thinking that they would likely not be timely in departing. Worse: she was directing them to the room next to use for use of a bathroom!!! I told Jean, we might as well try the TV (uncharacteristically). Rather true to form there was nothing fit to watch on. I tried to call Deb to see if she had a DVD we could borrow while Jean tried our hostess. The hostess quickly produced a DVD she had not yet seen: The Secret Garden. We finished it about 11:30 PM as the last guests were making their way out of the building!

9. After Commencement we went to Panera Bread for dinner: Jean, Deb, Beth, myself, Grammie, Uncle Lewis, Aunt Mary & Uncle David with their daughter Emily.

Mother's Day - Graduation Dinner


10. We finished packing Deb's room completely in ~2 hours this afternoon including the things she is keeping down there with her for her NCLEX review course (staying locally).

11. The drive home was through very heavy rain for New England for over half the trip - we shared driving with me taking the last leg after about a 1/2 hour nap.

Eventually, I'll drop some photos into this, but I'm going to post this before I accidentally lose it.