I'm back from Arizona! We got to visit all my favorite places around Madera Canyon and I saw 4 new bird species I've never seen before! SUCCESS! I'm trying to compile and edit the best photos from the trip (since I took about 600 with my new camera) for an EPIC blog post, so in the meantime I will talk about GRADUATION.
The night before graduation I went over to Megan and Kristy's for Kristy's graduation party, which was super fun. Originally I had planned not to drink, but I'm really bad at not drinking so as soon as Kristy pointed out that there was beer in the corner, I was like "K" and I immediately indulged. Then I ended up having two beers and a glass of champagne before I had to get home to get some sleep before the long day ahead. GOOD RESOLVE. Also good times. I went to bed at like 10:30 because I was so exhausted from not sleeping at all during finals week. The next morning I woke up early, showered, curled my hair, and got dressed in my graduation regalia.
I got everything worked out with my URSD award (there was a slight issue, but it turned out to not be a big deal, even though I flipped my shit about it), so I had a cool white cord to go along with my red stole. I met Gabi out front of the Huntsman Center (aka the giant boob) for commencement and we headed to the URSD (University Research Scholar Designation) line to converse with other peeps and get our pictures taken by Jill. Then, THE LINE STARTED MOVING. WE WERE COMMENCING D: We got to sit on the floor since we were research scholars, which felt pretty cool.
Commencement was, honestly, REALLY BORING. Our school president is a really poor public speaker and kept saying things like "the breast and brightest" instead of "the best and brightest". It was pretty funny. Clearly I am not an adult still since we giggled like 5 year olds. I didn't have my phone with me since I had no pockets, so I used Gabi's phone to text my mom to alert her and my family of where I was. They were right behind me, so my mom texted back "The back of yo head is ridiculous!" My mom is the best. Another hilarious part about commencement was that we had a student speaker who read her prize-winning essay about the university to us in the most dramatic manner ever. It was amazing, especially since she gazed out over the crowd with starry eyes every time she finished a sentence. The only cool part about commencement was that our speaker was Ed Catmull, president of Pixar and Disney Animation Studios. He had a pretty cool speech about not fearing the future and change that he linked to making movies like Up. Up went through multiple changes before becoming its finalized version, and that only occurred through change and the unknown. Also during Bolt, Rhino the hamster was the hardest character to animate and, at one point, they had to rework an entire scene because his character was impossible to animate. He asked the specialized animation team how long they thought it would take to animate this particular scene, and they told him about six months. Then two other random team members said they wanted to try something and ended up doing it in four days with a new and improved animated version of Rhino. And this only happened because they did something new and were unafraid of failure and the unknown. See a pattern? It was good for me to hear, since I am petrified of change, the new, and unknown. Commencement really dragged on, however, and almost made us late to our convocation. Especially since we dawdled outside for awhile taking pictures and then had to go on a quest for a bathroom.
We finally reached Kingsbury Hall, where the biology and chemistry convocations were being held, and ran into line. I sort of wanted to put some fake name on my readers card, but I chickened out at the last second and instead put my real name. We filed into the hall, which is a really poor venue for a convocation, just saying, and sat down. Convocation was perhaps even MORE boring than commencement, however it was better because we joined up with more friends and I had my phone with me. So I mostly played Draw Me while our convocation speaker talked about his super successful pharmaceutical company (I'm assuming). Then a chemistry student (who I'm not sure why they chose to be the speaker for convocation) basically rattled off her entire resume to us before telling us that her TRUE calling was as a chemistry genius! Ugh. I started paying attention when people started receiving their diploma covers. Every time someone cheered for someone walking across the stage, we'd be like, "She/he is loved". It was really funny for some reason, which is probably because we were so giddy about graduation. When it was our turn to go up on stage (we were almost very last since we were pretty late to line up), we went up behind the stage, I had my picture taken really quickly, handed my reader card to the announcer, and marched across the stage to avid applause and cheers (yay!) to receive my diploma cover.
When I walked down the stairs, I was shaking because it felt so unreal and crazy. We were declared official graduates of the biology program and the University of Utah and then headed out to take more pictures out on the lawn.
My bro and I
My grandparents making hilarious faces
Brynnan and I, biologists!
There were these big, plastic, red U's all over campus to take pictures with due to graduation, so I DEFINITELY utilized some of those, as seen above. When I first saw them on the way to convocation, I was so excited because I thought immediately "OH MY GOD, THEY'RE HIDDEN AROUND CAMPUS AND IT'LL BE LIKE A SCAVENGER HUNT!" but really they're just all in one group around President's Circle. After picture taking, we headed over to the ASB foyer for the science reception. We indulged in delicious food and were congratulated by our friends and family. I was so ADD at the reception since I kept trying to talk to four different people at once, so I felt sort of bad because I would just drop one conversation in order to talk to the new person who walked up to me. At one point I said hi to Sean, who was my TA in biological calculus (and helped me pass the lab portion of the class, which involved the dreaded MAPLE) and ended up accidentally completely ignoring Jessi (my graduate student), who was standing right next to him. I was so worn out at that point. She did end up catching up to me to congratulate me and give me a present <3 She's the best, I have loved working with her these past few years and will really miss her when I've left the lab. After the reception, we headed home for the family party cocktail hour, for which my aunt had made Jungle Juice and I had bought mason jars to drink out of.
I love drinking out of my adorable mason jars.
We rested for awhile and then had a delicious dinner at Tucci's, an italian restaurant in Trolley Corners. OH IT WAS SO GOOD MMMM! The tablecloth was paper (my favorite kind), so I immediately asked for some crayons. The waitress ended up giving us all a package of crayons, so I demanded that each family member draw something in commemoration of my graduating. The funny part is that everyone did end up drawing something, even both sets of grandparents (I also let it slide if they just wrote something like "Congrats!" or "I love Autumn!" because those are good too). Proof that I'm not actually an adult (even though I've graduated college). My dad and I played the "I'll draw a few random lines and you have to make something out of it" game, which I always love. During dinner I opened my graduation presents from my parents and grandparents. My grandma and grandpa got me money (woo!), nail polish, and a pedicure, my parents got me A DSLR!!!! <3 <3 <3 (an EOS Rebel T3i), and my oma and opa got me an F-50 lens that takes AMAZING depth of field portraits, plus a super professional flash unit and a bunch of photography books (that are both full of good tips and are hilariously written). SUCH GOOD GIFTS!! Oh man, I sound so spoiled but that's okay because I am so ecstatic at having a DSLR and I've already taken about 1000 pictures since last week. Anyways, after dinner we went home and it turned out that there was another additional gift that I had to get to via a scavenger hunt. My parents are the BEST!!! I love scavenger hunts A LOT and during Easter I totally killed at the Easter egg hunt. It led me to a memory card taped behind the mirror in my living room so I could finally start using my camera! I took a lot of beginner practice photos.
My combined graduation party with Gabi/Lisa's celebration for getting into med school was at Poplar that night, so I got ready for that and had my mom drop Raphael and I off (since we had indulged in Jungle Juice). Raphael got me a BOMB-FLY graduation gift: a SHANK! One with cartoon pirates decorating the handle that retracts to make it look like it sinks into the victim's flesh! Amazing. Pretty sure someone (aka my dad) took it out of my purse before I went to the bar, however, which might have been a good call. Once we got to the bar, we saw that Lisa and Austin were there and immediately started drinkin'. We brought a couple of magnums of wine and champagne and paid a corking fee in order to have basically free wine ALL NIGHT. It was awesome, you would just go up to the bar and ask for wine or champagne and they'd GIVE IT TO YOU. I was really into that. Eventually a bunch of peeps showed up and we all enjoyed yummy food and lots of drinks. Lots of alcohol. So drunk.
We had some guy take this photo when we first got there, and the guy sitting at the bar behind him noticed me grinning like a fool (like I do), and said, "LESS TEETH! NOW MORE TEETH, A LITTLE LESS...OKAY GOOD, GOOD!" which is why I look bizarre and Lisa is laughing.
This is when the guy taking the photo was like, "Okay, now topless!" We were a bit dumbstruck, and Lisa was like, "Are you fucking kidding me?" It was hilarious.
Trying to be sensual, since my first attempt looked like this:
Like I'm going to kick your ass.
WOLFMEEEEN!
There are like 70 other pictures, but I'll spare you. I had Kit Fry take candid pictures of everyone, which worked out really well because we got lots of awesome pictures! My favorite was waking up the next morning with little to no memory of what had happened the previous night and then looking through the photos. It was funny/sad though, because some people (especially girls) thought that Kit was just some creeper taking random pictures of them, haha. Anyways, an AWESOME party with tons of friends, lots of free drinks from random strangers, getting super crunk, eating delicious dip, and having FUN! This sounds so cheesy, but I can't really describe it better at this moment (considering I still haven't gotten a full night of sleep since the beginning of finals). It just was so much fun and everything I could have wanted from a graduation party (well, some more friends could have showed up and I would have been happy, but it didn't detract from anything because it was still so much fun). I loved every second of it <3 Claire and I were picked up by my mom (cool kids!) and this guy I made friends with (who I kept chest-bumping) really wanted to meet her and my dog, so he came over with us and said hi to her and Winston before bidding us goodnight. Other things I remember were Gabi and Jonah eiffel towering, getting a free Adios Motherfucker from a random girl who knew Gabi and who I became best friends with, not really knowing how to drink a flaming Dr. Pepper and thus sort of failing at it (but it was still good), receiving a kickass tiara and sash from Elyse homemade with love by her (the sash has she and I as seals on it, AWESOME!), taking tequila shots with Gabi, and sitting on a bench outside the bar while everyone in a hazy molten puddle of color asked us if we had rides home. The rest is basically just playing with friends and drinking. Lots of drinking (as mentioned...a lot, I'm sure).
Then I went home and CRASHED. Well, first I talked really drunkenly to Maddeh on facebook for awhile (which was hilarious to look back on), and THEN I crashed. My original plan was to just stay drunk and party hardy on Cinco do Mayo, but I was so hungover the next day. I usually don't get hungover, or if I do it's very mild, but this time I was trashed. I was still pretty drunk the next morning and then had a pounding headache all throughout brunch (since my family was over for brunches). So that didn't happen. Instead I packed for Arizona (which we were leaving for the next day) and just lay in bed.
Best. Graduation. EVER!
(also I graduated on Star Wars Day!)
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