Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Graduation at Hogwarts, Clinton, and a Cold


This last weekend I had the opportunity to get the heck out of New York and attend my little sister's graduation from Yale. I decided I would document this with a bullet point blog entry.
-Yale looks like Hogwarts. It may be a juvenile observation, but it really does. Throw in some professors and deans wearing funny robes and hats carrying ornate, old fashioned flags and props and it really does feel like your at that new Harry Potter amusement park.
-I got to see President Bill Clinton speak which was just incredible. Wicked smart that 42nd.
-I saw Aretha Franklin get an honorary degree.
-I saw the Secretary of Energy get an honorary degree.
-I failed to use my NY honed celebrity spotting skills on any of the celebrities who attended which makes me a little sad. I'm usually really good at that but I missed both Denzel Washington and Steven Spielberg who were both apparently there.
-No matter what SPF sunblock I use it seems to be an inevitability that I will get sunburned at graduation, thankfully though it was not a repeat of the Santa Fe lobster red burn of 04.
-After having suffered from really bad allergies all year, I was finally feeling a little better up until Saturday morning when I was getting on the New Haven bound Metro North when I came down with a cold.
-I had trouble regulating my voice since I could barely hear so there is a good chance that I spent a weekend yelling at my sister's friend's families and misinterpreting everything they said. Actually this is not really new since I am partially deaf, I only ever hear half of what people say anyway. Have you ever played that kid game, telephone, with a partially deaf person? The results are way more interesting when you do.
-Every road in Wallingford CT is named either Barnes or Main, or so it seems when you have no sense of direction and are driving around trying to find the super cute downtown area.
-Despite what I hoped, people will practically sit in your lap on a crowded Metro North train despite coughing up a storm and blowing through a box of kleenex.
-Those people are also the ones desperately trying to open novelty size screw top bottles of champagne to mix with their orange juice at 8:00AM on a Tuesday.

And on a completely unrelated note... As of last Friday I have been in NY for 5 years. I remember last year when I told myself, I should really try and be getting out of hear by 5. Yeah, that didn't happen so much.

Well I think that just about sums up my weekend. Happy Graduation season everyone.


See what I mean by Hogwarts? Either that or imagining Lyra Belacqua running around from roof to roof.

No comments: