swampy, thank you for reminding me - I haven’t told you guys how it went. The ceremony was boring with a capital BORING. And long. And mostly pointless. Did I mention it was extremely boring? I got there at 8 am. We marched in at 9:30 am. I got my diploma roughly 3 hours later. To pass the time my fellow physics majors and I playd speech bingo. One of our classmates was passing out small sheets of paper with Bingo squares, and we each got one with some combination of the words and phrases likely to appear in speeches during such a ceremony. Examples: “Rensselaer,” “future,” “and I quote,” “goals,” dreams," “as we look back,” etc. I would’ve had an actual bingo if someone had only said the word “beginning.” Ah well.
Let’s jump back a bit to the opening of the ceremony. Nine thirty rolls around, we’re all chilling out behind the big field in our caps and gowns, etc. We get into the final lineup, the bagpipers start to play, and we start moving. That’s when I feel it. step pain step pain step pain step PAIN. It’s the heel of my left shoe, mercilessly digging into the flesh of my left foot. (I’d be worried if it were digging into the flest of my right foot.) Of course, I couldn’t say, “Okay everyone, hold up a minute. I’ll just be a second.” I had to keep in step, like a good little robot. Step pain step pain. Slowly, inch by inch, step by step, I started to lose a layer of skin. Step pain, step pain. You know that clear liquid you get with superficial wounds? Yeah, I have stains on my socks now. sigh My life is so hard.
Speaking of my life, I was almost last getting my diploma. Now, my last name is Parkinson, which you wouldn’t think would be last. But here’s how they do this. First, it’s the honorary degrees. Then the PhDs, then the Master’s, and then the undergrads. Within that, it’s alphabetical by school. So, School of Architecture, School of Engineering, etc. And School of Science is last. Within that, it’s alphabetical by department, so a bunch of the physics kids who are actually Applied Physics get to go first while ordinary, Vanilla Physics is last. I thought I had the last name within that, but there were a couple after me. In addition, they took the School of Information Technology completely out of sequence and put it dead last. Ah well.
The speaker was retired four-star General Wesley Clark, former commander of NATO and the Allied forces in Europe. Real muckety-muck. Some of you may remember him as a minor candidate in the 2004 Presidential election. So I was worried he’d be a super-conservative, especially once they mentioned he was also a commentator for Fox News. And although he did use the word “faith” a lot (enough that I added it to my Speech Bingo card), he was a remarkably cool guy. He referred to all of us as “hardcore,” and told us about how he used to think of RPI as the source of his math instructors at West Point, who would come down the river and “inflict mathematics on [them].” So he was good.
Oh, and I’ve also officially gotten confirmation from Amsterdam about delaying a year. So I’ll be going to Dartmouth this fal and Amsterdam the next. I’m surprised I’m not upset about this, since I really do want to go to Amsterdam, but now I know I’m going, but with better preparation. So it’s all good. 
