iGrad: Music to My Ears

Dammit, who am I kidding?



Old Man Walking



How correct are the people who tell you that short walk across the stage is so special and unique? Is it really indicative of the 4 (or 5 or 6) years that we’ve
spent reaching for that goal? Is it really a right of passage that magically makes us an adult as we cross the stage and receive our fake diploma?



It is and it isn’t.

"It’s hard to feel like graduation day is all about you when you know everyone there with a robe on has swamp ass too."

For me, college was a struggle. A struggle against what I was being taught and who was teaching it. A struggle with loan officers, parking
attendants, and bureaucratic secretaries whose job it is to make sure all t’s are crossed and i’s dotted. A struggle with those damn condom wrappers before she
wakes up. Mostly a struggle against my own self-destructive tendencies. For example, even in my last semester I managed to fail a photography class because I skipped it so
much. How hard is it to take pictures and go to class? Seriously! Too hard for The Beech apparently.



So I walked across a stage. Big freaking deal. I earned the hell out of this degree and am very proud of it, but I’ve been an adult for some time now. That piece of
paper didn’t make my pubes finally sprout (hormone therapy took care of that).



As I stood in the basement of the auditorium sweating my green-robed ass off, I laughed at my fellow “honorees” (I use that word in as loose a sense as they were
as freshman) rushing around trying to find out where to stand and what to do.



“Look,” I told them, “they’ve been telling us what to do for years now. I’m perfectly fine with not having to think for myself for one more
day.” Then I turned up my iPod.



iSegue



Yes, I now have an iPod and have crossed over into the digital iHell of iCulture. I swear it wasn’t my fault. It was given to me as a graduation gift. I was going to
sell my new 4 gig mini, and get a Creative player with 18 million gigs of space complete with optional coffee maker instead, but the marketing company I work for customized
them for us. They say “[adult swim is your friend]” on the back. How could I sell that? Damn. Now that I have it, I may as well use it....



I still iContend that iPods are most definitely evil. Sure, they’re iHandy, but they’re also the biggest iHoles to throw time and money at. I must look insane to
the outside viewer, but you iPod owners, iBack me up:

(End of iDigression)



Graduations are boring. I could barely stay awake on my own, so I left to have a cigarette. Some of you may think this disrespectful, but I don’t give a shit, so save
it.



When it finally happened, the experience of walking across the stage...was a bit anti-climactic. It’s hard to feel like the day is all about you when you know
everyone there with a robe on has swamp ass too.



Besides, we all know that you learn as much outside the classroom as you do inside it. I brag that I can hold a conversation with anybody, anywhere, about anything. I
didn’t learn that in a class. I honed this “skill” by watching a ton of TV and having millions of drunken conversations. I honestly don’t feel bad
spending all my loans this way. It was a good investment I think. Ask me again when I’m sober.



I actually cried at my high school graduation. I had to give some stupid speech for being salutatorian or head cheerleader or something like that and I got a bit choked up
and tears trickled from the corners of my eyes. I wondered if I was going to do that again. I didn’t, but it’s only because I’m not a total pussy anymore,
not because I no longer have emotions.



The ceremony was long, so we, being college students and having little respect for anybody, made fun of the speakers. Our student speaker was a double major receiving
degrees in both engineering and philosophy. He had served on 2,012 committees ranging from the Association of Aardvark Astrophysics to Zebra Zealots, had 613 internships,
was published in the Bible and had been into space a couple times. Other than that, he fit in with us normal liberal arts people pretty well. We laughed at his high-brow
humor and big words while our parents flipped through their dictionaries trying to keep up. We did a little condescending “we’re better than you” dance and
then I had to get back to my day job flipping burgers.



When the different majors started walking across the stage in front of and behind us, we were definitely going a little stir crazy. Their ploy to get us to sit still for two
final hours was unraveling. We made jokes about each other rather than give in to our instincts and start rioting.



“Professional writing? What the hell is that? I’m a professional English uh...talker person, how’s that?”



“Jazz studies is an actual major? Give me a blunt and a bad recording of Witches Brew and I’ll have to earn that degree.”



“Stupid philosophy majors: I graduate, therefore I walk. Does this piece of paper really exist?”



Even I couldn’t be too cynical though. I was with family and friends who had come to see this day…finally. I just wanted it to be over so I could celebrate in my
own way (whipped cream, lotion and a blindfold).



So now everyone wants to know “now what?” Unless those people have a job offer for me, they can go fuck themselves. I have no idea what is next for me, but I
know it’ll be OK…eventually.



Congrats to all the grads this year. You’ve earned it. Unless you haven’t. Then fuck off.



I’m back.

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