Alice graduated from USC, too!

Mission accomplished in returning to New York much earlier than I wished. We're moving, and yesterday we settled some time-sensitive business related to starting life in a new apartment. Peter reminded me of the following goodie the other day:

At my graduation from USC in May 1993, the ceremony was pretty impersonal. No surprise at such a large university, really. From this detail Alice created an opportunity for herself, and a fun spectacle for the rest of us.

Dressed in my cap and gown, I got my little blue card, on which I wrote my name and major. Heaven forbid anybody know who's graduating that day and what they'd been studying for the past four years. When I got to the podium, I handed the card to the announcer, who read it, and voila -- I graduated. I walked off the stage, and when nobody was looking, took off my regalia and handed it to Alice, who couldn't wait to graduate, too. She donned the black robe and cap, got her blue card, wrote her, er, name -- Skya Soblue -- and her major, darnit which I forget, and walked to the stage. Very entitled, for all the hours she had studied in the Doheny Library to get to this moment, Skya got to the podium, handed her card over, and walked proudly to pick up her diploma scroll, which looked exactly like mine -- blank. When she returned to where we were standing, she took off her cap and threw it in the air and we snapped a picture. She was so giddy! Now that I remember it, the boyfriend of a fellow graduate also walked with Alice, so she had a partner in crime. The picture in my mind is of the two of them side by side, caps in the air.

While this anecdote brings me so much pleasure to recount, there was another, less pleasant element to my graduation. Alice was in charge of filming the day's events. I suppose any time you hear the words "Alice was in charge," you should be weary. Unfortunately, I wasn't, I had only known Alice all my life.

By the end of the day, I was so excited to see what it all looked like, how future Chahinians would get to see their great-grandfather on his fateful graduation day from USC. We pop the video into the VCR, press play, and what a lovely picture! There I am, walking in my cap and gown towards the graduation area. There I am talking with friends. There I am, CLUNK. There they are, blades of grass and the bottom of a tree trunk, while sound remains, and there I am faintly audible talking to someone. For another minute, then I'm no longer audible. The grass doesn't move, nor does the tree. For about twenty-five more minutes. Alice clearly had something more interesting to do, like graduate herself, which took precedence over chronicling mine. It still kind of pisses me off, yet at a moment like this, I regret not taking over the camera duties and catching more of her graduation from my alma mater, as well.