I am starting this blog with a big ole phat “Whew!!  That’s over!”  I have been under the radar the last couple of weeks because I was working on my final project for graduate school and was short on time and patience for internet foolery.  Anyway, at my school, there is a window period for when people can take part in commencement, so I was able to walk in the ceremony even though I had one more week of class left and my final project and thesis still due, no pressure, right?

The main campus for my school where the May commencement was held is about 100 miles from where I live, we have a brick and mortar campus here but the big ceremony was held at the main campus.  I go up the day before so I didn’t have to get up hella early to be at line up by 11:00 am.  So, on my way up on Friday, I stop at Culver’s to grab a bite to eat.  They had a 3 piece fish dinner on the menu for like $11.00 and some change.  I wasn’t interested in all of the carb laden side dishes that came with the dinner, so I asked the girl at the drive-thru if I can just get a couple of pieces of fish.  She said that I could and that I could get just 2 pieces of fish for about $9.00 and change or 3 pieces of fish for about $13.00 and change.   I was floored that I could get a whole meal for $11.00 and change but to just get fish was WAY more, so I asked the girl at the window why that was….. her answer?  Because they had to ring each piece separately.  Seriously?  Needless to say (but I’m going to say it anyway), I got a burger and kept it movin.

The rest of Friday came and went without too many more uncontrollable irritations, so I worked on my project, hit the rack and got up the next morning for graduation, Show Time!  Now, I have nothing against math majors, however, I think that having the head of the math department give the commencement address is a little odd at best, especially when there may have been one graduate from that department.  The head of the department admitted that she had never given a commencement address before and in writing her address, she thought it would be a good idea to speak directly to the graduates versus writing a speech designed to impress her colleagues and her boss.  I’m thinking that she should have gone with the speech designed to impress her boss and colleagues instead.

I think that the intent of her speech was to promote financial responsibility and the importance of saving money.  She began by letting us know that a lot of little things can add up to big things, duh, I know, right?  The way she explained that concept was by saying “I make under 70k per year, but if you add up the total of a few professors that make under 70k per year that eventually, you’ll see that the school pays out more than 100k per year in salaries because it all adds up”.  That’s just fan-effin-tastic.  She stood in front of hundreds of people who are now probably up to the top of their head in student debt and announced that in the grand scheme of things, she doesn’t make any money.  That’s what we wanted to hear, I thank her for that.  She did share with us one of her money saving tips, she let us know that she washes out zip-lock bags and sets them atop of the handles of wooden spoons for them to dry so she can reuse them.  I thank her for that too.

Just when I was thinking that this address could not be more irrelevant and even less motivational, she goes on to tell us of a trip that she once took with her husband to some island where “The black people were so dark, they were the blackest people in the world and they had never seen white people in person before”.   Oh for crying out loud, and since they had never seen white people in person before, she said they were so taken by her straight hair that all the children wanted to do was to play with it.  The people of the islands were thankful for the crayons she sent them for the school when she returned home, so I think that the moral of that train wreck was that if you help one person in your life, you’ve made a difference. Now look, I have completed 3 degree programs now and I was much happier that speech was over than I am that school is over for me (for the moment).

After graduation was over, I was pretty sure that I had seen and heard all of the randomness that I could fit into one weekend, until a woman almost took out the front end of my car by barrel assing through the McDonald’s drive-thru when I stopped for iced coffee.  What was her hurry?  They gave her the wrong .39 cent pie……….. yes, really.