![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
raloriaAs promised I have photos to share and details about my birthday/graduation on Friday. :)
I've got a few other pics from before the 13th, so we'll get to those first.
This is a CU of the blooms on our rhododendron in our front yard.
It's in major need of a good pruning, which hasn't been done in years. As you can see, it practically dwarfs this front part of the house!
On June 3rd, we had a big windstorm. I looked out my bedroom window and spotted this Blue Heron up on our backyard neighbor's poolhouse roof! Guess he was blown off course, because there's no marshes around us. I cropped this photo way down, so you could see him.
Okay, now to my big day....also known as the biggest event I've had for my birthday. :)
I started by watching the Paley Festival disc from the SPN S1 DVD set. It had been a while and starting the day off with a bit of Jared and Jensen felt right. Ate a late lunch, got dressed (it sucks being elegant sometimes), and picked up my aunt and uncle at 4:30 p.m. Traffic wasn't too bad and we got there a little after 5:00. We went to a student lounge area across from the courtyard where the graduates were supposed to gather and I put on my cap & gown to join them. Got my card with my name on it (which was for the name reader during the ceremony and for the photographer there) and found my place with the other Media graduates.
Here's a view from my spot in the Media line for the Professional and Technical degrees. As you can see, the Interior Designers were just to our left (more on then in just a bit). That's the L Building you can see. I had a couple of classes there on the 2nd floor.
The L Building, some of the Interior Designers, and some other graduates as we all stand and wait.
We were lucky the weather was nice. It was cloudy, but not too cool and the sun came out every now and then. I only knew 2 other students in the Media graduates line. We chatted a little bit, but spent most of the time just standing. Ugh. It was a lot of standing for over an hour. But they gave us our directions, got us lined up in a neat little row (there was about 10 of us in the Media line), and told us we'd be walking to the left of the Nursing graduates. Standing in our little area, we were right next to the Interior Designers. I heard one of the helpers say that the Nursing students were the rowdy ones every year, but they had nothing on the Interior Designers. Heh. *g* We were nice and quiet and stayed in our line...being the serious Media students that we are/were....whatever. Those Interior Designers bunched up their line, whooped and hollered at the smallest thing, and got all excited when some of their instructors came over to greet them. Silly people. :P
After about a half hour, more students came walking up from the south end of the campus to join us. That's part of the B Building and the dome of the Planetarium. I always wanted to go to one of their Planetarium shows, but I never did. Bummer. I bet it was cool.
My understanding was that these were just the regular graduates, ones not receiving any technical or professional degrees. More waiting, more standing, feet aching. Finally, at around 6:45 they started marching us off to the Gym.
The grey building hidden by the trees is the Gym. The one on the left is the end of the R Building. I had several classes in there, too. I actually watched this building being built during my time here. It's one of those "green" buildings...environmentally friendly, uses less energy and water and all that. :)
With "Pomp & Circumstance" played by the band, we entered, looking very much like a herd of "penguins" (as I heard one student say). By pure chance my row was seated right next to where my mom, aunt, and uncle were sitting. So I wasn't very far away from them. At least they had room between them, we graduates were pressed in, seated shoulder to shoulder. Talk about snug!
The ceremony began with a speech from the college president, a few faculty, and a guest speaker from Microsoft who had a cool Australian accent and gave a great motivational speech. There was lots of statistics listed (how many graduates, how many graduating with honors, students who had won contests around the country, how the sports teams did etc.). I got to stand up when the graduates with honors were mentioned, which was pretty cool. :D
Somewhere in front of that blue curtain, the college president is speaking. As you can see, it was very hard to see much of anything over the sea of black caps! And I'm tall, too!
Since I couldn't see much, I took this pic of the program in my lap, next to one of my gold honor cords.
The one low point of the ceremony was when the choir sang. Or should I say screeched. For an award-winning choir, I was not impressed. They were a bit off-key in the beginning and had a lead singer (decked out in a light tux) who sang like he was an American Idol wannabe. He wailed and hollered his way through the song and then couldn't seem to find a way to end it already! Bah. Could have done without that noise, thank you very much, but all in all it was a nice ceremony.
Next was the awarding of the diplomas (although all you really got was a nice, blue cover...we got our diplomas in the mail). I actually got pretty excited just waiting for my row to stand up and approach the stage. Got up there, had my name announced, and heard my uncle yell out "Happy Birthday Valerie!!!!!". OMG! I swear, I did the whole "hide me now" head duck before walking forward to shake the hand of one of my instructors, receive my cover (more hand shakes), and walk back to my seat. Man! My relatives....I never know what they're going to do. :P My uncle later said, "Your aunt made me do it." Ha!
After all that, we did the ceremonial moving of the tassel to the right side of our caps and did the recessional out the back of the Gym. There we were applauded by our instructors. I was surprised to see Michael Korolenko there. I exclaimed, "Mike!", went over to him to shake his hand and he congratulated me and said he'd see me in about 2 weeks for filming! *bounces* I kinda got whisked away with the crowd after that, so I didn't find out anything more. I think I just said, "Okay!" to him. Last I'd heard, the "Long Time Gone" film production wouldn't start filming until August, but it looks like things have moved up. Cool!!!! I've been itching to get started, so this is great news!
We were led back around to the courtyard we started from and by then everyone's family and friends were already streaming out of the Gym to join us. After some time spent walking and searching I finally met up with mine. We were going to go to the reception in the Cafeteria, but my uncle went ahead to check it out and said there were huge, long lines. We were all kind of tired and cold (the sun had just set and it was getting chilly), so we returned to the car and drove home.
I took these photos after we got home and ate a very late supper. My feet were killing me, so my shoes are off here, which is why it's not a full-length photo. I took a ton of photos with the camera's 10 second timer, so I'm lucky a few of them came out okay.
I'm laughing in this one because my Mom was in the living room trying to get me to move over more into the shot. My cap's on crooked, too, but I was tired and it was the best I could do.
I took these last 3 this afternoon. Laid out my cap and gown, along with the program, honor cord, and diploma cover. It turned out really nice!
And here's my AA Degree in Movie Making. Proof that all those years of hard work were worth it. I blocked out my middle and last name for privacy.
One more nice arrangement of my cap, gown, and the degree in it's cover.
Hope you enjoyed this look at my big day! If you read the whole thing, thanks for making it to the end. Now I'm looking forward to a career as a film/video editor or a Script Supervisor. The important thing now is to get more experience at both and the "Long Time Gone" film is a good step in that direction. I'm very excited about it. I'll be working with people that I know and building on skills I already have. It'll also be a paying (albeit low) gig and a credit for my resume (which I'm very much in need of). Hopefully this production will lead to others in the area. I can't wait to start filming and be on a set again! *bounces* :D
I've got a few other pics from before the 13th, so we'll get to those first.
This is a CU of the blooms on our rhododendron in our front yard.
It's in major need of a good pruning, which hasn't been done in years. As you can see, it practically dwarfs this front part of the house!
On June 3rd, we had a big windstorm. I looked out my bedroom window and spotted this Blue Heron up on our backyard neighbor's poolhouse roof! Guess he was blown off course, because there's no marshes around us. I cropped this photo way down, so you could see him.
Okay, now to my big day....also known as the biggest event I've had for my birthday. :)
I started by watching the Paley Festival disc from the SPN S1 DVD set. It had been a while and starting the day off with a bit of Jared and Jensen felt right. Ate a late lunch, got dressed (it sucks being elegant sometimes), and picked up my aunt and uncle at 4:30 p.m. Traffic wasn't too bad and we got there a little after 5:00. We went to a student lounge area across from the courtyard where the graduates were supposed to gather and I put on my cap & gown to join them. Got my card with my name on it (which was for the name reader during the ceremony and for the photographer there) and found my place with the other Media graduates.
Here's a view from my spot in the Media line for the Professional and Technical degrees. As you can see, the Interior Designers were just to our left (more on then in just a bit). That's the L Building you can see. I had a couple of classes there on the 2nd floor.
The L Building, some of the Interior Designers, and some other graduates as we all stand and wait.
We were lucky the weather was nice. It was cloudy, but not too cool and the sun came out every now and then. I only knew 2 other students in the Media graduates line. We chatted a little bit, but spent most of the time just standing. Ugh. It was a lot of standing for over an hour. But they gave us our directions, got us lined up in a neat little row (there was about 10 of us in the Media line), and told us we'd be walking to the left of the Nursing graduates. Standing in our little area, we were right next to the Interior Designers. I heard one of the helpers say that the Nursing students were the rowdy ones every year, but they had nothing on the Interior Designers. Heh. *g* We were nice and quiet and stayed in our line...being the serious Media students that we are/were....whatever. Those Interior Designers bunched up their line, whooped and hollered at the smallest thing, and got all excited when some of their instructors came over to greet them. Silly people. :P
After about a half hour, more students came walking up from the south end of the campus to join us. That's part of the B Building and the dome of the Planetarium. I always wanted to go to one of their Planetarium shows, but I never did. Bummer. I bet it was cool.
My understanding was that these were just the regular graduates, ones not receiving any technical or professional degrees. More waiting, more standing, feet aching. Finally, at around 6:45 they started marching us off to the Gym.
The grey building hidden by the trees is the Gym. The one on the left is the end of the R Building. I had several classes in there, too. I actually watched this building being built during my time here. It's one of those "green" buildings...environmentally friendly, uses less energy and water and all that. :)
With "Pomp & Circumstance" played by the band, we entered, looking very much like a herd of "penguins" (as I heard one student say). By pure chance my row was seated right next to where my mom, aunt, and uncle were sitting. So I wasn't very far away from them. At least they had room between them, we graduates were pressed in, seated shoulder to shoulder. Talk about snug!
The ceremony began with a speech from the college president, a few faculty, and a guest speaker from Microsoft who had a cool Australian accent and gave a great motivational speech. There was lots of statistics listed (how many graduates, how many graduating with honors, students who had won contests around the country, how the sports teams did etc.). I got to stand up when the graduates with honors were mentioned, which was pretty cool. :D
Somewhere in front of that blue curtain, the college president is speaking. As you can see, it was very hard to see much of anything over the sea of black caps! And I'm tall, too!
Since I couldn't see much, I took this pic of the program in my lap, next to one of my gold honor cords.
The one low point of the ceremony was when the choir sang. Or should I say screeched. For an award-winning choir, I was not impressed. They were a bit off-key in the beginning and had a lead singer (decked out in a light tux) who sang like he was an American Idol wannabe. He wailed and hollered his way through the song and then couldn't seem to find a way to end it already! Bah. Could have done without that noise, thank you very much, but all in all it was a nice ceremony.
Next was the awarding of the diplomas (although all you really got was a nice, blue cover...we got our diplomas in the mail). I actually got pretty excited just waiting for my row to stand up and approach the stage. Got up there, had my name announced, and heard my uncle yell out "Happy Birthday Valerie!!!!!". OMG! I swear, I did the whole "hide me now" head duck before walking forward to shake the hand of one of my instructors, receive my cover (more hand shakes), and walk back to my seat. Man! My relatives....I never know what they're going to do. :P My uncle later said, "Your aunt made me do it." Ha!
After all that, we did the ceremonial moving of the tassel to the right side of our caps and did the recessional out the back of the Gym. There we were applauded by our instructors. I was surprised to see Michael Korolenko there. I exclaimed, "Mike!", went over to him to shake his hand and he congratulated me and said he'd see me in about 2 weeks for filming! *bounces* I kinda got whisked away with the crowd after that, so I didn't find out anything more. I think I just said, "Okay!" to him. Last I'd heard, the "Long Time Gone" film production wouldn't start filming until August, but it looks like things have moved up. Cool!!!! I've been itching to get started, so this is great news!
We were led back around to the courtyard we started from and by then everyone's family and friends were already streaming out of the Gym to join us. After some time spent walking and searching I finally met up with mine. We were going to go to the reception in the Cafeteria, but my uncle went ahead to check it out and said there were huge, long lines. We were all kind of tired and cold (the sun had just set and it was getting chilly), so we returned to the car and drove home.
I took these photos after we got home and ate a very late supper. My feet were killing me, so my shoes are off here, which is why it's not a full-length photo. I took a ton of photos with the camera's 10 second timer, so I'm lucky a few of them came out okay.
I'm laughing in this one because my Mom was in the living room trying to get me to move over more into the shot. My cap's on crooked, too, but I was tired and it was the best I could do.
I took these last 3 this afternoon. Laid out my cap and gown, along with the program, honor cord, and diploma cover. It turned out really nice!
And here's my AA Degree in Movie Making. Proof that all those years of hard work were worth it. I blocked out my middle and last name for privacy.
One more nice arrangement of my cap, gown, and the degree in it's cover.
Hope you enjoyed this look at my big day! If you read the whole thing, thanks for making it to the end. Now I'm looking forward to a career as a film/video editor or a Script Supervisor. The important thing now is to get more experience at both and the "Long Time Gone" film is a good step in that direction. I'm very excited about it. I'll be working with people that I know and building on skills I already have. It'll also be a paying (albeit low) gig and a credit for my resume (which I'm very much in need of). Hopefully this production will lead to others in the area. I can't wait to start filming and be on a set again! *bounces* :D
