The nice thing about sleeping back home is that I don’t have to set an alarm, I just tell my mom to wake me. I know that if I get up after the second time she comes it and tells me it’s time to wake up, that gives me just enough time to do my morning thing and be ready at the same time as everyone else.
It’s a good thing, too, because I was awoken at 6:30 a.m. Sunday morning. As the designated driver, I got to drive the three of us to UCLA in my mom’s car, with my Uncle and Aunt in the car behind us. The trip was uneventful, except for the fact that I got to see some of the construction projects that had been started when I was still living in SoCal actually finished (the 57/91 interchange and the 5/91 interchange) along with some brand new construction. We manage to only make about one wrong turn that was easily correctable, drive past Scott and pick him up off of the street, park the car, and walk to the open field where his graduation is going to take place. We get there a little after 8am for the ceremony that starts at 10am. UCLA’s commencements are a bit more like Berkeley’s than UCR’s, though. They split it up by school/department, and have multiple ceremonies in multiple places over the course of a few days. We attended the Physical Sciences ceremony of the College of Letters and Science, which was large enough that the Chancellor attended. The stark contrast of the students, not to mention the crowd, compared to UCR’s ceremony was striking. Where I felt overdressed on Saturday, I definitely felt underdressed on Sunday, and I was wearing nicer pants on Sunday (heh)! There were quite a few more Doctorates, nowhere near as many Masters Degrees, and a fraction of the Bachelor’s Degrees. The difference that allowed us to be done in an hour an a half was that they didn’t actually walk across the stage. The Doctorates got hooded individually, but everyone else just stood up in place were recognized as a group.
The keynote speaker was also a bit more appropriate (instead of a Poet at the Business school yesterday, they actually got a Physicist) and quite a bit more entertaining, as was the student speaker. The student who sang the National Anthem sort of left out a verse, though… she was probably very nervous. The ceremony ended, and my aunt, uncle and step-dad all headed off, and my mom, my brother and I went to a reception for the Math department.
Only it wasn’t a reception. It was another hour and a half long awards ceremony where the students actually did walk across the stage. At least this one was indoors in one of the ballrooms of the student union, there weren’t any more speeches, and there wasn’t any blazing sun (which there was quite a bit of at the morning one). Airhorns are a lot less bearable inside a room, though, at least the woman behind us gave us advance warning when she was going to use it.
So it’s 1:30 and we actually get to the reception (cake and punch) and we realize that we don’t have as much time as we thought, as my flight leaves at 6:05 out of Ontario (which is about 50 miles away, 80 if you consider that we have to stop at home to pick up my luggage which we didn’t think to take with us… yes, LA is rather spread out) so we can’t take our time. Scott gives us a quick tour of the Police Station where he works as a campus security officer, goes back to his fraternity house to change, and we drive down to Santa Monica for a brief lunch, drop Scott off, drive home, pick up my stuff, drive to the airport, where I dash out of the plane and make it in almost as little time as I made the last flight.
I play some GBA in the airport, and quite amusingly, I wasn’t alone… there were two other people playing, and neither of them were kids. I choose the side of the plane that the sun wouldn’t be on again, but stupidly choose a row against a wall, so the seat backs don’t recline. I still manage to get a little sleep, though. We land, and I walk straight to the parking lot (short term parking is convenient that way). I end up paying $49 for parking, which is less than the $60 I was expecting (there’s a $30 daily maximum). I drive home, actually get a decent parking spot on the street, and walk in.
I give Luke a tired look, and he says “What? The house isn’t that much of a wreck!” (he had a BBQ over the weekend, while Ken and I were out of town… coincidentally, of course) I say “no, I’ve just had a very busy weekend,” and drop my stuff off upstairs. After checking my e-mail, I plop down on the bed and try to finish reading my book. Luke comes in and says he’s bored, let’s go see a movie, so we end up seeing Atlantis (which was nothing like Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water) and going to the grocery. We unload the groceries and I collapse on the bed.
I then woke up this morning with a headache, once again. *sigh*