It has now been a little less than two weeks since I graduated from college. And those two days were wonderful (but also incredibly sad). If you aren't familiar with UT's system, your graduation is separate from university-wide commencement. At graduation you walk the stage, accept a piece of paper that is not your diploma and you do that with your college (Moody where you at?). Commencement is much shorter and, let's be honest, more fun - there are fireworks at the end (see photo above). If you have been following along on this journey, you'll know I recorded one second a day my entire senior year, you can find that here, where you will see some moments from graduation and commencement.
We started off the day of graduation with breakfast at La Madeleine and a trek to get my cookies for graduation, my mom surprised me with them, a whole post about that is coming soon. They were adorable. Then we got ready and went to lunch at Torchy's Tacos. I insisted that this be where we ate because my first day of college I had a Democrat taco (no avocado) and I wanted to make sure my last day of college had the same moment. Plus, who doesn't want a photo in their grad cap with a taco? We then headed to Frank Erwin Jr. Center for the graduation process. I ran into my former Ladybirds Vice President in the bathroom and we snapped a photo. Then we lined up by major, alphabetically, and walked onto the floor. Let me take a moment to say, graduation is an interesting deal. You sit in this alphabetical order with people you most likely don't know and that is how you end college. This also happened to me in high school. We spend so much time making friends at school and then we don't even celebrate this moment together. It's an interesting deal...
Journalism was the second school to walk across the stage, and I did it. I didn't fall or make a fool of myself and...it was the most anticlimactic thing I've done in a good long while. After taking, what seemed like, 50 posed photos that I will not be purchasing I sat back in my incredibly uncomfortable seat and waited for about an hour and a half to go eat dinner. Graduation is a strange time y'all. And this is just my experience, I'm sure others had a wonderful time. But I found the whole thing to be a bore and kind of disappointing? Like it was dumb of me to build it up in my head but come on? There should be more excitement in the air and it seemed like no one really wanted to be there (be forewarned, this all changes soon).
We finally got out of the arena, snapped a few photos and headed to Mattie's at Green Pastures (one of my favorite restaurants in Austin). All in all that was a great experience, I would recommend it for anyone graduating from UT in the future. After that we stopped in at St. Elmo's Brewery in south Austin, it's one of my favorites and it seemed appropriate to drink a beer in my grad cap too...that thing never came off basically. Saturday morning dawned bright and after a quick breakfast the best friend was in town for a catch up and commencement. We had steaks for lunch then went to the Great Texas Exit at Etter Harbin Alumni Center for some free drinks and photos with Bevo (aka the best part of being a Longhorn). Commencement seats opened at 5pm (which is very early, because students are supposed to line up until 7, so what were we supposed to do in the meantime?) so we ran over to get good seats for my parents and Hannah. They ended up under some big oaks with a pretty good view of the tower. For those of you that don't know, at commencement there are speakers and then they turn the tower burnt orange with your graduation year's number and there are fireworks. I then walked over to line up with my fellow Moody grads to walk into our seats.
The evening was nothing short of magical. I cried (tears of happiness, sadness and everything in-between). By the time we were singing the Eyes of Texas and the fireworks were being shot off I felt a sense of place begin to develop. Sure, I was graduating from college - the best years of my life thus far - but I was becoming part of something so much bigger than myself. Basically, now I am a Texas Ex and I am so so so proud of that. There are amazing people out there doing phenomenal things for this planet and I can call them fellow alums. I'm thrilled with the new journey that is going to take place regardless of the sadness that sometimes still plagues my heart because I won't be on the Forty Acres this fall. But everything will work out. This is gonna be fun - xoxo darling & HOOK 'EM, Hayden.
P.S. There are more photos that go along with the post above. Also, have you graduated? How was your experience?
Mattie's drinks are A+.
St. Elmo's Kolsch is my favorite.
Mindy's Bakeshop cookies!
I clearly look like I know how to do this whole graduation thing...right?
BEVO!!
Love my besties.
My classy drinking buddy, Alyssa.
Congratulations! It looks like your graduation was so much fun. Can't wait to see where your journey goes next!
ReplyDeleteKaitlin || www.thecuriouslemon.com