The time has come for a post that I don't feel like I ever seriously thought about writing before: The Graduation Post. It's not that I thought I'd never graduate (I always knew I would . . .eventually)  I just ended up loving school so darn much I wasn't really begging for the graduation day to come. But it came. At least the ceremony of the thing did. I walked in April but I won't stop paying tuition until December and then won't technically have a diploma and teaching certificate until I successfully complete my internship. I wonder what criteria they'll use for "successfully complete." Do you think it has to do with whether the kids and I come out alive at the end of the year unscathed or if I'm good at keeping a grade book? Possibly a combination of the two.
          Internship, you ask? Oh yes, well, I will be teaching drama at a middle school for the next year while the teacher is on sabbatical. I feel like being a school teacher and getting paid to do what I have studied and spending every day with 12-14 year olds makes me for all practical intents and purposes, graduated. So I decided to go through the ceremony and performance of the thing. It helps with closure and makes things seem real. Only graduation may be one of the most unreal or perhaps surreal experiences ever. But that's not really what we came here to talk about. I know what you want: pictures. Don't worry, I'll give them to you. Because heaven knows the only thing more I can say about it is that it created more emotions than anticipated. 
        I was so happy and excited to have my mama there, and  to wear the new dress she had made me. I loved listening to Elder Oaks, walking and sitting with my dear friends on a stage that I had assistant stage managed and interpretive danced on and taking pictures outside a building that had held a huge part of my world for the last 4 and a half years.But the excitement also held a bit of sadness. It was a day of good byes as Brigham Square, where we had met and said hello, became the place I said good bye to my dear Childresses.   I feel like in the face of such wonderfulness and personal meaning it is difficult to really describe it and keep this whole thing from becoming one of those unbearable personal slide shows done to a terribly smarmy song or worse, a personal bawl fest. Besides, it's been a while and you'd think after Arabian Nights, frankenuterus and a month at home I'd been a little bit more removed from the whole thing. So here are the pictures promised about fifty-five sentences ago.

Mama and I after the big convocation. Here's a secret I actually walked in with the Life Sciences people, so I could sit by my friends, the Rexes. Rebel graduate without a cause? I think so!

Jeffrey just finished his freshman year at the Y as I was finishing my last. I've always loved going to school with him

Me, Jes and Allison. We were all in the same 276 class, it's the application class for theatre education and here we are about to walk together as dear friends now not scared major applicants, knowing way more stuff about theatre and education than we knew before!

This is my darling friends Kristie. We had two benches on the fifth floor that practically had our names on them we studied and talked there so much. Rodger called the benches our office. That office and those chats were a  great ballancing force for me hat last year. 

I heard this phrase a while ago and I've been dying to use it: here I am with my bestie for the restie. We're outside the hfac and it looks like we're saying "can you believe we did it?" or "we're gonna make it after all" or even "love ya"but in reality I think she had tried to start a game of kick butt or something and I was trying to get us to look like recent grads for the picture. 

The Childresses and me, rockin' the old cap and gown for our very last (that wasn't even meant to be) themed hurrah. 

Evie Bean, that sweet girl. Saying goodbye to that baby was difficult. I mean I knew her when she was just barely the size of a bean!

Oh graduation is just a hoot and a half!

So there it all is. The graduation. We'll end it with a goodbye picture. I loved BYU, the hfac, going to school, the people I met and the things I got to do more than I could have ever imagined as a scared little freshman, who had just paid tuition for the first time.