Then the party started

After the graduation ceremony, we had to meet up with our family. This was the trickiest part of the day. They released the graduates in no semblance of order. We bled onto the plaza outside of the stadium, some people doing that incredible thing where they stop in the doorway because, hell, they've made it mostly outside. We'd made plans with our friends to meet in the lobby of the music building, which is just far enough away to be out of the chaos, but close enough to not make older relatives super cranky. We'd of course forgotten about our own families though.

Girls with no pockets begin producing phones, hats, jackets, banners. I mean, I know where a girl with no pockets stores her carry on items, but some of these were extreme! I had nothing to produce but a cell phone, and I'd requested Max store it in his actual pockets since guys really got the better end of that exchange. I had messages from parents directing me down to the base of the gym. Great! I knew exactly where that was! Getting there was the tricky part. Fighting through streams and hoards of families, winding up in a lot of family photos, pissing off lots of grandmas. All in a days work, really. But it certainly is tough work. 

Eventually we spotted our family and made quick work of shoving people out of the way to get there. Parents were snapping pictures and shouting about "now this relative, no not your uncle, your cousin." My parents were hosting an "open house" lunch/party for the two of us. It started at 1 pm, and since I'd believed the ceremony would be done by 10:30, I was mildly overwhelmed to think of all the goodbyes I now had to cram into the time between noon and 1! We traipsed over to the bell tower once again for some pictures ringing the bell in our full regalia. Then it was back over to the music building to get the group shots with those who we spent most of the last four years with. Thankfully everyone was still there! We did photo after photo and hug after hug.

There's really no accurate way to describe the feeling of graduating college and leaving all your friends. You feel elated because the four years of hard work are finally over and you're (hopefully) starting a grand new adventure in your life, be it job, more school, or a travelling adventure. Fear, because of the exact same reason. This is the first time you'll really have to fend for yourself. Sure, sure, you were "on your own" in college. But there was a cafeteria, very few, if any, bills. You were even with all of your friends, so you were all "on your own" together. It's the last time in your life where you will be surrounded by people who are in the same season of life as you. That shit's scary. Then you have to walk away from these great friends you made. Goodbyes are never easy, especially with friendships made so quickly and so meaningful.

Once we wrapped up the goodbyes, Max and I headed to a local hotel to meet up with our families. The parents were throwing us a party/open house sort of deal. They'd booked one of the big rooms, ordered from Rib Crib, and decorated like nobody's business. Ross and Britelle brought their families, which made it even better! Charlie compiled a slideshow of tiny Maxwell and I from pictures provided by the moms. Sadly, the hotel lied about it's technology, so we viewed it on his laptop instead of projecting it. Still it blew our socks off! They'll continue to search for and add the most embarrassing pictures to have at the wedding, which will be amazing.

After the lunch was over, Max and I headed back to the apartment. His brothers went with him, and I brought Julie back with me. Everybody met our delightful kittens! Loki is finally bigger than Amelia! She topped out around 8 1/2 lbs and Loki finally made it up to about 11 1/2! The funniest part was that Max and I had no idea he was so big until the vet weighed him! It was nice for the kittens to get to meet everyone before we moved.

I had dinner with my dad's family. I took them downtown to Elote for some puffy tacos! Then we went over to Mod's for gelato. It was really great to spend some time with dad's family. They haven't all been together since Matthew's funeral, so it was amazing to gather on a positive note.

When I got back with Max's brothers, they were at El Guapo's wrapping up dinner. We wandered around looking for a calm place for drinks, but wound up just back at the hotel to play some Avalon.

Having such a joyous celebration with family and friends was just what I needed. It's been a lot of heart break for a while, it was time for an uptake. This is a new chapter of our life. A new beginning. A huge adventure. Let's get the party started.

Graduation!!!!

On Saturday, May 10th, 2014, Max & Cathy graduated from the University of Tulsa!!!

The weirdest part was no one told us anything about how to do it.

Cathy thought that the ceremony began at 9 am. Wrong.

Cathy thought the ceremony would be over by 10:30 am. Wrong.

Luckily we still somehow graduated. We showed up at 9 am and were shuffled into a room. After asking around to friends, we determined that there was a table to find. This table would provide us with a note card. On that card would be our name. This card was the success to graduating. It was this card that you would hand to someone, who would hand it to someone, who would hand it to someone who would read your name out to the audience, so you could walk across the stage. 

We managed to make that happen. There was a notation on Cathy's card indicating her Cum Laude honor. Max wanted to take a red pen and add "Optimas Prime" to the beginning of her honors...

We then milled around talking to friends. We got in line with Ross, Corey, Grant, and Weston for the graduation processional. Since everyone had magical note cards, you could sit wherever you saw fit. Everyone was then instructed to form two lines for each college. We were in the practice basketball gym. There was not space for us to form two lines for each college. We proceeded to form two amoebas for each college. It seemed to sit just fine with the mysterious people guiding the day's ceremonies. 

We're not sure when it all actually started, but all of a sudden the gym was less full. Since there was no panic indicating a mass alien invasion, this hinted at the option that the processional had started. Soon enough our "line" began to move. There was scrambling, hooting, and hollering as we made our way through the underground of the gym  and then stumbled into the gymnasium. There was no warning, no "best faces!" just all of a sudden, a gym! 

There were almost enough seats for everyone as the colleges wound through the rows. PhD candidates on the first row, then Masters, then the undergrads began. The Arts & Sciences, then the ENS, then the Business College. They worked from back to front though for the stage-walking portion of the morning.

Cathy - I honestly don't even remember walking across the stage. I handed my name card over and focused on not heading up the stage until I heard said name being read. There were two hands to shake and then a photographer. I tried to ask him a question and was shushed off the stage. Then there was another photographer! And he agreed to take a picture of Max and I together! 

First there were all the speakers. The President, Steadman Upham had several words to say. The chaplain said a blessing of some sorts. Then the commencement speaker came to the podium. He graduated from TU with his law degree while Cathy's mom also attended. He then served as a federal judge in the Oklahoma courts for several years. He wasn't the worst speaker in the world. He made some excellent jokes and convinced us that we're all helpless when it comes to the job market. Typical stuff for this day and age. The worst was really the student president. She brought up the fact that though there are 8 billion living people on the planet, there are infinite more dead people just hanging around. She reminded us that we are incredibly insignificant, but should keep on keeping on anyway. It was heart warming, really.

Ooooooo Friday

Kind of a long day. Max's parents came into town last night, and mine where heading into town later in the afternoon.

Carol and Norm messaged me to ask if they could come help pack. All I had left was the kitchen, but it still seemed drastically overwhelming. Plus I had 8 am lunch with an old friend and then 10 am workout with Britelle, so I was a little tight on time. Breakfast was amazing! It's so great to have good moments with great friends. Carol and Norm showed up just as I got back from downtown. They packed like champions, finding the odds and slightly bigger ends that didn't have a home box yet (our printer...).

Workout was really good. I've thoroughly enjoyed having gym time 3 days a week. I've never been an athletic person, but working out with a partner in a directed manner specifically for my body has been amazing. It was sadly our last workout. There were no actual tears, but we got to pick the exercises! We did bench presses, and I pressed 65 lbs! Then we did sled work outside for the first time. We did just regular drags with about 60 lbs on them, then backwards jump/pull things which are impractical to describe without visuals. The final thing we did was flip the largest tire in the gym!! It weighs 263 lbs and we each flipped it 6 times on our own!

Max was back from a quasi-final when I got home. His parents had finished packing up the kitchen, which was a huge relief for me. It gave us time to relax a little before things got too crazy.

My parents, Matt and Bev, showed up with my Aunt around 3. They spent some time with us and the kittens. We all looked through the engagement pictures we had taken the weekend before. Then they went out to their hotel.

Max was having dinner with his family at 5:30, and mine was doing dinner at 7. Thankfully, Max and I were not intended to be at each dinner.

My mom's family and dad's family met up at Ruby Tuesday's for a graduation dinner. I split the table, with my mom's to the left and dad's to the right. Aunt Lydia, Aunt Michal, Uncle David, Aunt Rhonda, Grandmother, and Grandfather were all there, as well as my Uncle Mark and Aunt Peg and Aunt Kim and Uncle Ed. My parents gave me a beautiful diploma frame and my class ring! Jostens messed up on the rings for the entire school, putting the wrong stone in the middle. It's supposed to be a deeper sapphire, but they put in a light blue stone. I also accidentally filled out the form wrong, asking for "MS" on the side instead of "BS!" So we'll see if I can get it redone correctly... Hopefully more to come on that later!!

The best gift of the night was from Dad. He gave me a leather portfolio with "ICDI" embossed on the front. When I was little, that was my mantra - "Daddy, I can do it." It was just what I needed. A reminder and vote of confidence from my father that I can do anything I set my mind to. I'm starting to get a little anxious about moving to Vancouver, and this was a great reminder of the courage I had as a small child.

I had to leave that dinner early in order to meet Max's Nana for dessert. It was a blessing to meet her as she will not be able to attend the wedding. It was also Hillary's birthday! So our cake was a combination celebration! The most exciting part is that Hillary and Charlie are expecting a little girl!! She's due a couple weeks after the wedding, so hopefully everything will go smoothly and the baby will be on time!!

We rang the bell!!!

I think pretty much every school has something like this. A bench you aren’t allowed to sit on, an arch you can’t walk under, or a bell you can’t ring until you’ve finished your last final. There’s an old bell on campus that students ring after they have completed their last final/paper/project for their degree. The staff ties a long rope to the end of it during finals season so that students can achieve this, the highest of college goals.

I mock it slightly, but it was actually very satisfying. It makes a load ring that makes you suddenly feel like this is everything your four years have built to and you would not have righteously earned your degree without this last step.

Max and I went together to ring said bell. Here are some of the adorable shots we got.

And on Wesnesday, they rested

I’ve gotten a ton of packing done. The projects are wrapping up and family won’t be here for a couple more days. Today is for relaxing. It’s for my Hulu queue and by cats. I’m really going to miss them. They’re going to stay with my mom in Dallas for a couple of weeks while we drive up to Vancouver. Then we’ll fly them up after our friends’ wedding at the end of May.

Countdown

There are four days left until graduation. It’s been quite the semester for Max and me.

To start everything off, Max was told that all of his band credits did not actually contribute to his hour count for his degree. Every music ensemble is listed as a one hour credit course. This includes fall marching band, spring concert band as well as orchestra and jazz band both semesters. The rule for the ENS College is that only three of these one-hour music classes may count toward your degree. Admittedly, this is stated in very fine print in the course listing book printed every two years, and has been since before we enrolled for the first time. Yet no one had brought this rule to Max’s attention until he filed for a grad check. This meant he was 8 credit hours short of a diploma. He scrambled and got two three-hour independent studies together with the music department during the spring semester. But there are still two hours he has to finish from off-campus this summer with the head of the CS department.

Then there was our Compiler Construction project. I’ve already spent way too much time covering that, and you can read more about it here.

We still had finals and papers and group projects. Computer Science kids do not work well on group work together. There is a key distinction between everyone collaborating on solutions to individual assignments and everyone trying to work simultaneously on one single project. The difference is no one touches your code on individual assignments. They can straighten out an issue in their code and then show you how they did it, then you can modify yours based off of that. On group projects, you are dealing with different coding styles, personalities, and work ethics. I had a team whose prime coding hours were 2 to 6 am. Those are my prime sleeping hours. So I’d wake up every morning to see that they’d redone some of my work or completely changed a methodology. Not the easiest thing to do.

Now we’re packing like mad. We have graduation on Saturday, May 10^th, at 9 am. We have to be checked out of our apartment by 3 pm on Sunday the 11^th, so that doesn’t allow much packing/relaxation time this weekend. Plus we have oodles of family coming into town. Most of my mom’s family, all of my dad’s, and all of Max’s. It’s going to be chaotic.

I’m really excited right now. We have our apartment ready to go, our passports in order, our U-Haul truck booked, and all our hotel reservations for the four day trip up there. Here’s the plan on that front:

Sunday, May 11^th: Pack up the U-Haul and head north to St. Joseph, MO. It’ll only be about a 5 hour drive for the first day. Easy roads and good weather.

Monday, May 12^th: Drive northwest from St. Joseph to get to Rapid City, SD. This might be a tougher day. It’ll be about 9 hours behind the wheel, but the plains can get pretty windy. At least there’s no mountains yet.

Tuesday, May 13^th: Continue northwest all the way up to Missoula, MT. It’ll be the longest, toughest day. 10 ½ hours of drive time, plus stops for food and gas. We’ll also be knee deep in the Rocky Mountains. No easy feat for a U-Haul.

Wednesday, May 14^th: Last real day of driving! Go due west and then north from Missoula to Bellingham, WA. It’s the closest city to the border that’s still really a city. Plus it’s only an 8 ½ hour drive. Still some mountains, both the Rockies and the Cascades, but not nearly as bad as Tuesday.

Thursday, May 15^th: Crossing the border! We’ll hit the border first thing in the morning. I’m not anticipating any troubles at the border, but we want a decent time buffer just in case. We won’t have to unpack the U-Haul, which will make things easier. Then on into the city and the apartment!!!! We have movers coming at 1 pm to take everything up to the 30^th floor!!

God does laugh at the best laid plans, so we’ll see how everything goes. Since all of that is as well prepared as it can possibly be, the goal now is to finish the packing! I wanted to start three weeks ago, but thankfully Maxwell talked me out of it!

Compiler Construction

The Compiler Construction course is only offered in the fall semester so that students might have the following spring to complete the massive assigned project. This is the class everyone is terrified of. Stories are told as if we were all around a campfire, the professor lurking in the dark trees waiting to leap out and stamp an ‘F’ on any one of us at a moment’s notice. No one looks forward to this class. You dread it for three years with every fiber of your being, hoping that perhaps the university will make it an optional course for the degree and you’ll be the lucky few who get to slide through without it.

Then your fall semester senior year rolls around and the professor tells you that the class already scheduled to meet at 8 am on Tuesdays and Thursdays will actually meet at 7:45 am on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays for the entire semester. You crap your heart out of your ass and promise on all the deities you believe in that this will finally be the class you study for, the class you always attend, the class where you’ll actually keep up with the projects. Then it’s the second week and 7:45 am sounds like the zombie apocalypse itself and you sleep through the first lecture.

Then it becomes midterm season and you haven’t been to class in a week and you scramble to find someone who know what material will be tested and you stay up for 3 days straight trying, pretending, and finally studying for what you know will be your certain death. You realized during your maddened study sessions that the material wasn’t as death-defying as everyone has made it out to be and you question your entire mental psyche and ability to be swayed by the fears of those around you. Then in the final moments before the test you launch into a downward spiral, asking yourself if you even want this degree in the first place and analyzing how low a score you can get to still pass the class and being certain that there were four more chapters you forgot to study.

The test starts at 7 in the God-forsaken morning and it takes everything in you just to be there on time. The first page nearly makes you cry, but then you flip over and start at the back of the test, working your way forward just to try to mix things up and slow your rapid heartbeat. You can answer that question, so you pound out the things you fervently memorized the night before and proceed to the next question, only to realize that you were actually prepared for this test because the material really wasn’t murderous and you studied the right chapters. The test continues and you eventually answer all but a few questions, for which you make wild guesses with all of the keywords you can remember, hoping and praying that the professor gives partial credit. As you walk up to hand in your test, you once again call on all the powers of your ancestors and holy beings to give you the strength and the fortitude to start attending class and working on that project you knew you’d have finished by now.

That weekend you actually read the project description and open up a blank project in your editing space. You give it an appropriate title and add in a few variables. Next thing you know your friends are having a party or you found a marathon on TV to watch and three weeks fly by.

This theme will only repeat itself near finals. Only this time, you don’t even make noise about the project. You have too many other things to worry about, and now crazy relatives are asking what your post-grad plans are when you don’t even know what you’re going to have for dinner tonight. This project will wait.

The “it’ll wait” mentality lasts way too long. Through most of spring semester. Classmates mention here or there that they worked on it last weekend, and it’ll occur to you to add it at the bottom of your to-do list. You remember that it’s important, but, hell, this is your last semester of college and there are so many better things to be doing! Parties, relaxing, spending time with friends. Even planning your future sounds better than dredging up that old project. You’ve forgotten where you put the assignment sheets and you might have even deleted that project file you started, or maybe you’re just not sure where you saved it… You really need a better method for this.

Your parents ask if you’re going to work on it over spring break, which is the best joke you've heard all semester. But then the week comes and goes and you’re mailing graduation announcements, picking up your cap and gown, and freaking out about finals. All of this does not bode well for the incomplete you still carry from last semester. You’ll get it done though, you still have time.

Which brings us to dead days and finals weeks. The idea that this will happen is starting to be overwhelming. You manage to find the project you started, but of course none of it makes sense. Were you drunk when you started this? What is happening? Two hours later you just start a blank project. You’re pretty sure you remember what you’re supposed to do, and you found a couple of pages of notes from last semester, so it’ll be fine. You message a friend for the actual assignment and then break into a full-blown panic attack when you read over the project description. This is horrifying. How will two weeks ever be enough? You are doomed to fail. This is the end. At least you tried at a college degree. 

Two days later you’ve had some more chocolate and you feel up to trying the project again. Once you actually make your way into the code and development, the whole thing is starting to make sense again. You remember everything about parse trees and the lexical analyzer is making some sense now. Four days later you realized you don’t know what your shower or sunlight look like. You haven’t had any real food and you think the smell might be you and not your cats. But that project is finished. It feels good.

YOU KNOW WHAT WOULD HAVE FELT BETTER?

Working on it for a couple of hours every weekend in the fall so you could have continued to shower on a regular basis. Completing the project when the professor was still answering questions about it. Not having it floating over your head all semester, frequently brought up by your parents.

Well, at least you get to graduate.