Graduation weekend was wonderful. Really, it was the best graduation weekend I could have asked for. My parents drove up from California, my dad's brother flew out from Minnesota, and my aunt and uncle on my mom's side came out from Colorado. They all rented a funky little house in NE Portland and we spent most of our time eating delicious things and drinking wine. Graduation was on Saturday, and in the morning we met for coffee and pastries near my house. From there, we made our way over to campus for a reception hosted by the English department. All of my professors were there, so my family was able to put faces to names and meet the people who have had such an impact on my life these past few years. It meant so much to me to be able to introduce my parents to my favorite professors, and to celebrate the end of classes with all those other English majors I struggled through Moby Dick and Renaissance poetry with. That's not to say that the graduation ceremony wasn't great. It was. It was intimate, relaxed but professional, and dry (two thumbs up, College, on the decision to hold the ceremony in the gym). And our class speaker compared us college graduates to Romans crossing the Rubicon. What's not to like about that? Darn right, we are Romans. I am a Lewis and Clark Graduate, after all.
Anyhow, after the ceremony, my family and I went to the best.dinner.of.my.life. My mom had made reservations at Bar Avignon, a cozy little restaurant on Division Street. We were seated in a small, chandelier-lit, wine cellar-like room that we had all to ourselves in the back of the restaurant. We had a leisurely (three-hour-long) dinner that consisted of things like warmed olives, goat cheese, asparagus salad, cherry-glazed pork chop, spring pea risotto, and lemon verbena creme brulee for dessert. If your mouth isn't watering, you don't have a soul.
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| Our private table |
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| Avignon Lemon Drop (vodka, lavender infused honey, mint, lemon) |
I realized just how lucky I was to have the graduation experience I did after attending my best friend's commencement ceremony yesterday at Chico State. In Chico, Bloody Marys count as graduation day breakfast, which is fine by me, except when breakfast time is 6 a.m. But more than that, the Chico graduation seemed impersonal. It had a kind of get-'er-done feel to it, and by the end I was cheering right along with everyone else -- not so much because however many thousand of my peers had just graduated, but because the ceremony and the seemingly endless name calling was finally over. Don't get me wrong, I was happy to be to there to wave and cheer for my friend as she walked across the stage and received her diploma, but I was happy it wasn't my graduation. To each her own, and my own just happens to be a small little liberal arts college graduation ceremony with a private reception beforehand, on a day that starts after the sun has been out for a while and I have had time to get a cup of coffee (or two) in my system. I may not have been the most school-spirited Pioneer at L&C, but the college served me well. I found my niche in the English Department and the professors and literature rocked my world. After graduating, and seeing other graduations that could have been my own, I feel confident that I picked a university that fit, that provided me with a college experience I am proud of, and one that reflects who I am. I was happy to sip mimosas at the break of day in a Chico bar to celebrate my friend's accomplishments, but I'm happy that on my graduation I was sipping tea out of paper cups on the fourth floor of Miller while my dad chatted with my thesis professor. That's almost enough to get a genuine 'Go Pios!' out of me. Almost.
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| Post-grad photo |
