Graduation from Middlebury College

Graduation weekend was absolutely splendid. Though my mom and I flew out to Burlington, Vermont – with a layover in Detroit – on Friday the 13^th, all of our travels went well. We were greeted by the smiling faces of all of my beautiful friends at Middlebury College, and the revisit to the campus reminded me just how beautiful that place is. Unfortunately I didn’t really take the time to stop to smell the flowers – and appreciate the beauty of the mountains and the architecture – last summer when I was in Vermont for six weeks studying harder than ever before. This time, however, I reveled in it all.

The ceremony was incredible. It was about a million degrees in Mead Chapel, which was especially suffocating thanks to my vinyl cap and gown, but the atmosphere was thick with excitement and achievement. Between the 130 of us that received our masters, only about 20 of us were in the Italian School, while the rest were from the Chinese, Portuguese, French, Spanish, German and Russian schools. The director of each department got in front of everyone and introduced their newest masters in their specific language, so the ceremony was full of beautiful sounds I hadn’t heard since last summer.

           

Cap, gown and hood-clad [masters get hoods!], each of us took our turns walking up to the stage so as to kiss our directors [Europeans kiss one another] and receive our diplomas and staffs that Middlebury gives each of its graduates. I don’t know about anyone else, but that cane was one of the biggest reasons I wanted to make it to graduation! It’s something I intend to keep forever and ever.

Long story kind of short, graduation was amazing… and to top it off, I got to spend time with my lovely mom and [former] roommate, Christine.

Here's a picture of me with the said lovely mom right before the commencement.