Graduation shindigs

But before we get into that... brrrrrrr! is the first item to report! This morning, it was 20F/-7C! But... Now that most of the snow is gone, the mud has been pretty bad, so a morning below freezing is really nice for a run! Frozen mud is such a lovely surface to run/walk on!

So, in reverser chronological order, here are my commencement photos:

My adviser and me:

He was also accepting emeritus status.

This thing was ha-yooj. It took 3 hours to get through all of us, including graduates of the community college and technical school, who are also under the UAF umbrella:

You could tell that a lot of graduates were the first in their family to complete a college degree. It was lovely to see. :)

A rare photo Loyal Reader Number One--My Mudder. Happy Mudder's Day!


A friend sent me this photo somehow... a screenshot from the live cast, I suppose?


I found my friend, colleague, and co-graduate AB afterwards!


Here is a photo from the Alaska Native Science and Engineering Program graduation banquet:

I am not an ANSEP student, but I was invited to participate in ANSEP graduation ceremonies since I have been a tutor of ANSEP students for four years. It was an honor to stand alongside my former students!

Of all of the graduation shindigs, I thought that the ANSEP banquet would be my warmest-fuzziest, but my coworkers threw AB and me a surprise graduation party!


AB and I both work different aspects of biomass, so our manager called a "biomass meeting" so we could all "touch base on how different biomass projects are going". Snnnneeeeaky! He set it for 11:30 a.m. in the ATCO trailer outside of our lab building. AB and I wondered why we couldn't just meet here, where we all sit within ten yards of each other. But he said he would be in a class that morning, and would only have very little time to meet, so could we please meet him closer to his class? Snnnnneeeeeaky! As the morning proceeded, coworkers started vanishing. Did AB and I notice? No, we did not notice. We stepped into the ATCO, and--surprise!



They had mounds of food, plus a huge cake, a pie, cupcakes, plus a bottle of champagne, gift cards, and graduation cards signed by all of them, for each of us! Awwwwwww... *sniff*

Party hearty in the middle of a Thursday!


We cut the cake together. For a lifetime of being co-graduates! *sniff* *sniffy* *sniffle*


And on Friday afternoon, I finally finished the cake!


I have rather a nice little collection of these now:


My collection is now complete, much to the relief of my Mdr! I'm going to get one of those... life thingies! :) And final grades are due to the registrar this wednesday, so I'll be done with my class by then too! (I'm halfway done with the final exam, so intend to finish calculating grades tomorrow.) After that, loyal readers, watch this space for photos of me fishing, hiking, backpacking, and sitting on the porch staring off into space! And combing out mounds of doggie hair! And sneaking around behind the proper hippies' backs and grinning evilly with my swiffer!