Pomp and Circumstance

Graduations are weird. Even though I was partially participating in the event, I couldn't help but wonder why it was such a celebrated "accomplishment" to have attended school, a compulsory thing. You're pretty much expected to pass all the way through, and then you get to the end, and people act like it's some great feat. Almost everybody who started out finished. Woohoo? I guess I'm being too cynical.

The whole thing just seemed to really lack real sentiment. All five of the students who spoke said almost exactly the same thing, most of which I consider to be hardly true. They all used the over tired "just four years ago we walked into this gym as freshmen, and now we're here as graduates" device, and then said how the school had taught them all it's okay to be unique. (Nevermind the traditional practice of them all wearing identical graduation robes, which I understand, but find ironic.) I know most of those people in some capacity, and I'm in high school, and being unique is the last thing they cherish. They all listed the same accomplishments, and the people who got cheers from the audience members were hardly those who chose to "walk their own path." Again, with the cynicism, but it just seemed like one big show that didn't nearly reflect the experience that those people actually had.

The administrators sounded bored (one of them kind of angry), and a few even let the softness of preferential treatment and partiality taint their voice as they called each student across the stage. That was perhaps the most honest moment in the whole thing.

They promise great things for the class of 2010. In my head, I'm thinking half of them will hate college and drop out, some will stick with it even though they realize they picked the wrong major halfway through, and a select few may actually love their college experience and the subsequent job. The chances of any of them changing the world? Slim to none. It's just semantics that nobody believes but everybody has to say.

They'll all land somewhere and I hope the majority of them will be happy. I hope standing in that crowded gym wasn't the the happiest they'll ever be, and I hope holding that diploma isn't their highest accomplishment in life. That's what they should be wishing upon the robed masses at graduations--I hope this isn't it. I hope you do something beyond get through high school. Your track team's going to state your Senior year should not be what you're talking about in ten years as the best moment of your life. They should just hope that they go far beyond the "realizing that it's okay to be yourself" lie they kept repeating.

Most of all, graduation made me grateful I chose my school and grateful that all the tearful accomplishments we name at our graduation won't be lies, and that I will sit among people I admire instead of tolerate. I found where I'd be in the line-up and smiled at my preferred seat in the bleachers. A good decision can never be reinforced too many times.

I also just realized that they didn't throw their hats. In what kind of graduation do they not throw their hats?