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The Beautiful Letdown

Kristen, MS. Heck yeah.

So graduation was Friday. My parents flew and Jerilyn drove down for the occasion - good times! The day was a long one, but definitely memorable. The hooding ceremony was at 8am, followed by a breakfast reception. The graduation ceremony was at 2 in the afternoon. I was pretty pleased with the ceremony. Pleased, that is, until The Bad Luck of Kristen struck again. So I'm up on the edge of the stage, my name is called, I walk proudly toward the college president to receive my diploma and BAM! I fall flat on my face. I'm just kidding. You'd have heard of my death by mortification had that actually happened.

Anyway, here's what actually DID happen. I'm next in line. They read my name. I walk up to the president, extend my right hand for the hand shake whilst simultaneously extending my left to receive my diploma. My right hand makes contact and initiates a nice firm handshake. Big smile on my face. Left hand is poised to accept diploma...left hand poised...waiting...for diploma... Uh... "what's your name??" they frantically whisper at me. I reply in a bewildered tone. They rifle through the stack of diplomas, skimming names with panicked looks on their faces. All the while I am holding the president's hand in what I can only assume was an increasingly sweaty grip. The president tries to make light of the lengthy pause in the flow of events and gives me a courtly bow (still holding my hand, of course). Then, at last!, they've found my diploma. The handoff is made, a ripple of laughter runs through the thousands gathered in the civic center, and I walk off stage, diploma in hand. or so I thought...

I get back to my seat, start to roll up the gigantic piece of paper to place it in my diploma tube and only then do I notice there is NOTHING ON MY DIPLOMA. They couldn't find my diploma so they tossed me a fake. I was not pleased. My displeasure was compounded by the fact that everyone else in my class got their real diploma - other than Alissa, who got a place-holder diploma that at least had her name on it and a reassuring message saying her diploma had to be redone and would be shipped to her as soon as possible. I'd settle for one of those. I mean sheesh, come on, what they gave me is like what you'd give to a kid if they wanted a diploma to play with. So. Plan for tomorrow: Call registrar. Ask nicely where my ruddy diploma is.

My parents threw me a barbecuecookoutpartything on Saturday night. People from church and school were there, so it was a good-sized crowd. It's the first time I've used my backyard since I moved in almost two years ago. It was lots o' fun.

After Jerilyn left today, I spent a very, extremely nerdy amount of time updating facebook and all that on-line kind of stuff. Clearly my productivity is going to be impressive these next five weeks. Which brings me to my next point in this, the longest blog ever...

I have a job. In Phoenix. I've kind of known about it since the beginning of April, but things are pretty finalized now, so I'm sharing with you, my faithful xanga readers. I'll be working at the Barrow Neurological Institute as a medical illustrator. It's a great job - the best opportunity out there, in fact - so I'm very excited about it. The thing I'm not at all excited about...moving away from my friends here. I'll leave that whole situation for another, non-ginormous, blog.

It's Mother's Day. I have the best mom in the world. Seriously.