Rather impressive, on the whole. Thousands of people, as one would expect. They have the whole pomp and circumstance thing down to an art, but without coming across as being gratuitous. It shows you that it isn't just a name. It really is a different kind of institution.
It took at least an hour and a half for all the graduates to file in from many directions into the middle of Harvard Yard. Each group of graduates were conferred their degrees, by each of the schools, by the dean of the school and the president of the university. It really came off as though the conferring of degrees was something that was real and permanent, like a marriage, but with so many more people involved.
After the main ceremony, we went to the ceremony where Helen received her actual diploma. Then we went back to the Yard to hear Kofi Annan speak (article).
We picked up the car from the garage there in Harvard Square; the garage had been open until 1:30, I suppose in expectation of the following day. We went back to Quincy, and had a nice dinner with Helen's mom (Nancy), and finally got home to Marlborough. I was stuffed from the very good dinner, and rather exhausted. The alarm mistakenly went off at about 4am, and I did better than I expected, being sleep deprived and all.
The rest of my weekend went ok, besides the continued lack of resolution of my money troubles. I saw a bunch of friends (you know who you are), and headed back to Houston on Sunday afternoon.
I finally have money in my bank account. The money finally went through. And now I have more coming from another paycheck tomorrow. Sigh. Now to call everybody and get everything back up to date. Yuck, but at least I can.
Posted by David Cymbala at June 14, 2004 11:51 PM