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June 12th, 2005

Graduations

We’ve already recalled graduation stories and discussed the importance of sitcom graduation episodes, so there’s not really much left to talk about. But since I went to a high school graduation this weekend, I figured it was worth bringing up.

This graduation was easily one of the easiest to sit through. Not only was it inside at the Salem Civic Center in Virginia, but since the graduating class was only 240 people and there were only a few speakers, the whole thing only took about an hour. It really was a breeze.

One thing that surprised me: it seems that “valedictorian” status is easier to attain these days. If one has a 4.0 or above, they’re considered a validictorian. At this particular graduation, that meant there were 14 of them! (If it were limited to one, it would have been my brother-in-law, who finished first in his class.) Fortunately, that didn’t translate to 14 speakers, as they only selected the best speech of the bunch to be read.

Both my high school and college graduations were very long and were held outside on hot days. And the speeches were copious and unbearably boring. In fact, I couldn’t even tell you who the “famous” speaker was at either of them… has anyone ever had a halfway decent speaker that didn’t rehash the same “this isn’t the end, it’s the beginning” theme?

Posted in Everyday Life

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