Free at last, free at last
Well, after four years, I’m finally done. This last weekend I went through the graduation ceremonies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. I am graduating with a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science with the International Minor in Japan Studies.
I attended three graduation ceremonies, not including the “campuswide” one. (Which isn’t actually the entire campus at once.) Of the three, the one that meant the most to me personally was the Lavender Graduation hosted by the LGBT Resource Office. At that ceremony, I received a award (the “Unsung Activist” award) for my work in the GLBT community and had a chance to say good bye to many of my friends who are also graduating.
The other event I actually cared about was the Computer Science graduation reception. I had a chance to say good bye to friends (different ones, well mostly) and introduce my dad to a number of people who have been important to my time here.
The final ceremony I participated in was the College of Engineering commencement. Why did I do that again? Oh yeah, the pictures. Took way too long and was utterly pointless. I did find out that I was supposed to have gotten an extra sash for my International minor though. I picked that up today (Tuesday). Oh I did wear my rainbow tassel from the LGBT graduation for the engineering one. Technically I wasn’t supposed to, but f*** that. It was important to me.
I’m going to miss the friends I’ve made here in Champaign-Urbana. I’ll even miss the town and the area itself. I won’t miss the university at all. (Still slightly bitter on that one.)