Graduation

Graduation day was full of niceeee surprises, beginning with a TRUE gift from one animal to a certain veterinarian.
Amidst all the hustle and bustle and planning and covert operations, Friday was set aside for me. Just me. We slept in a little, woke up and again tackled that subway we had grown to know so well and found Central Park where a letterbox was hidden. We finally found it, a few blocks away under a big blue postal box. The picture is of Jim trying to re-hide it without being caught, trying to look like he is tying moms’ shoe. Well, let’s back up a minute about this letterbox. It should be called “THE CITY STINKS”. From the minute we got to NYC (where I have been twice before), I had been saying that I don’t like the city because it smells. It does! I don’t like the noise, I don’t like the quickness of it, I don’t like that you will never see the same person twice, I don’t like the germy feeling I get, and I don’t like THE SMELL.

Ok, so we had found this letterbox, I was about 30 minutes away from graduating. We were all in our good clothes and about a block away from Lincoln Center and we stopped to stamp in to this ‘walk-by’ I shall call it. We were all lined up against this waist high half concrete wall. I am complaining, of course, about the smell. I look down mid “I hate the city because it stinks” sentence and see that I am standing in a pile of chunky dog diarrhea. As I am trying to scrape it off of the bottom of my good shoes, I see it is all over the bottom of my khaki pants and I immediately begin to panic, but no fear…ZOEMOMMA IS HERE! Yup, and there she was with baby wipes getting every little bit of stinky dog crap out of my pants and taking my shoe to the guy with the hose to wash it (who very apologetically took it from her and washed it himself). Then we jaunted down the block to get me squared away for this graduation thing =).

Graduation was sad, scary, and exhilarating all at the same time. It is a time I have long awaited for. Kristi and I still talk about swimming in the pool behind our apartment. We would meet out there at any given time whenever one would call the other. When we needed to vent, scream, talk about stuff, or just generally defrag. This could be at any time during the day or night that ‘pool time’ would happen. We particularly like to recall the days of our very first week when it seemed so overwhelming and impossible. We would say, ‘is this going to end…oh gawd, will this end?’ Well, that sentence never went away, even through 5th semester it seemed as if I will still wondering if I would make it through unscathed. Kristi, always replied with the same answer just in different form each time, that of course I was and it was almost over. It wasn’t until 7th semester pool time that we started with, ‘oh my gosh, this **IS** going to happen. It’s those little things, those million things all added together that make my memories of the island. The friends I have now, and will try my hardest to never let go. The special people I intentionally tracked down for pictures at graduation so I could remember the day with the ones I shared it all the way through the last 3 years with. PW who lovingly calls me Ernie, PK who made me her honorable Asian for **one** night, Brad, roomie Jason, Cindy Lou Hou who like to lay out naked on the roof of her house, Theresa and Amanda our weekly potluck girls (and depending if they were on MY team or not, were Pictionary winners **grin**), Mindy my little encephalitis friend who doesn’t remember traveling 9 hours to see me and I talked her into a Walmart somewhere in the middle of Illinois, and all of the other buddies who were there and a lot that were missing, too!















Mostly, I have to really reflect on the family support. Mom, Kim, Robert, and Jim (a little later in the game) all were amazing. Daddy was my big fan there in spirit. I can remember spending countless hours crying, feeling lonely, missing my family and missing home, but it all seems worth it. Would I do it again? No doubt.


When I walked out of that graduation, I couldn’t find any of my crew: Mom, Kim, Jim, or Robert. Jimmy was the first person I saw. He gave me the sweetest tightest hug and said ever so gently, “I am very proud of you”.









Mom hugged me at the fountain and cried and said how proud my daddy would be, and me and Kimmy…well, we stood next to each other for our picture and did the thing that I love, we lean our heads together and don’t say a word. We know it’s there, she is my bestest most favorite sister with the same name.
Graduation day is definitely a day I will never ever forget. It was the day I was hooded with my doctoral hood and first officially recognized as “Doctor”.