Details, Details

This is really two entries in one, because I didn't have time to write on Friday, so here goes:

On Friday, I went down to Rutgers for my sister's graduation from Cook. It was in the RAC - the Rutgers Athletic Center, for those of you who are not Rutgers alums (and for most of you who are alums, congratulations on your recent graduations!) - it's where the basketball teams play. Normally, her graduation would have been outside, but it was raining.

Anyway, it was long. And the guy who spoke mentioned 9/11 - as did the president of Columbia at my graduation on Wednesday, and sort of drew the same message from it - that we should be less extreme in our views and value diversity - there must be some sort of cheat sheet for graduation speakers. And he spoke too long, and they gave out sooooo many awards... That having been said, at least we could see, and the calling of names took under an hour, which was wonderful! (L - how long was it at Rutgers College? Three hours? Just for the names?)

Oh, and did I mention that Cook College, unlike the rest of Rutgers, graduates in green? They still wear the Rutgers hood with their green gowns - it's red and black, and for most of them, it had a yellow collar - bachelor of science degree, for the few of you that might not know. Anyway, it looked really good.

And they each got a tree. I think it was a red oak. The state tree of NJ. What will my sister do with it? Plant it in Riverside Park? What did I get for graduating? A diploma and maybe a pin. What did my sister get? A pin, a keychain, and, oh yeah. A tree. Did I mention the tree?

Then we went back to College Avenue (the "main" campus, for those who don't know - and the one where I lived for four years, first in dorms, then a block off campus in a house) and I got all nostalgic. I got to see my sister's room, now that she is about to move out - and I realized I haven't been down to Rutgers all year! I haven't even seen how 17 Stone st. (where I lived those last two years) has changed in the past year - AN's "new" room (yes, yet another friend whose name begin's with A, and who must be referred to by two initials - there are only four of them on my LJ friends list...), a neater livingroom, perhaps, etc, etc. So that was kind of strange, realizing I had really left it behind this year. And now everyone else is leaving it behind too - or at least has graduated. So it was interesting to feel how much in the past Rutgers is, and to maybe regret that this year was so busy that I didn't get back to visit - sorry about that. I haven't even seen D and R's apartment!

So that was a nostalgic experience.

Then I had another "nostalgic" experience - I took NJ Transit back to the city. Well, maybe not so nostalgic. A bit sticky, though, thanks to the spilled coffee beneath my seat.

And then it was Shabbat.

Well, there were a few hours in between.

Friday night at AB's - a laid-back meal with about seven of us. It was really wonderful to hang out like that, to go to meals with a nice number of people, and to fall asleep on her bed - well, not quite fall asleep - while still in her livingroom, of course. At some point, I got yet another headache, and R named it Joe. (yeah, yeah. I know. After the title of the blog, that was sort of anticlimatic.)

And lunch involved the usual stair-climbing work-out, well-worth it as always. It is rather impressive how a six-person meal became twelve instead - well, first it became an eight person meal - before Shabbat. Then M invited four more people from shul - which made the meal even more fun. Of course, meals with LB always are, but this one was especially interesting - we talked about everything from pot to depression to how many doctors are on an El Al plane. It was a lot of fun.

Then I got another headache - does this one have a name, R? - and went to take a nap.

Woke up to an imminent rainstorm, and decided that if I left right away, I could make it to AB's apartment without getting soaked. Alas, I did not leave right away, and those ten minutes it took me to get out of the apartment made all the difference. Good thing AB had a skirt to lend me...

And, just before Shabbat - after candle lighting in fact, Y came home with, of all things, a Betta fish. Its name, it seems, is Buster. [AB, thanks fort correcting that.] And it likes to jump out of the net/scoop thingie when its water is being changed. It made for a rather hectic start to Shabbat. But if a fish will make her happy....

so that's the latest.

So tonight was wonderful. Teachers College graduation was in Riverside Church, and it is beautiful in there - plus, the Christian decor is relatively subtle, so it didn't feel like a church as much as a more generic place of worship. Which was nice. And when one of the students in our program needed to sit up front to see the ASL interpreter, another student asked if the entire program could sit with her - so I was in the second row. Which was especially great because the student speaker was from our program, and deaf, so she signed her speech - and all of us could see her, and not just listen to the interpreter.

Instead of having a keynote speaker, we had three shorter speakers, three people that were presented with awards: Jerome Bruner, who had something to do with... was it cognitive development research? Anyway, he changed the way people look at education - I didn't quite follow how. Richard Heffner, who has done a lot with educational television, and teaching through media such as radio and TV. And last, Judy Collins. She sings. I don't know too much about her except that she is a singer, and an influential one, espeically a generation ago. When she got up to speak, she sang for us. Twice. At the end of her speech, she sang Amazing Grace - and both songs were without musical accompaniament, and both were beautiful.

And afterward, I took my parents to the reception to meet some faculty and classmates, so that was wonderful as well - even if we couldn't eat much of the food.

Plus, before graduation, we had a picnic dinner in Riverside Park, which meant we had no pressure to rush over to the church - we were there early, and my parents got good seats.

Tomorrow is Graduation, Part II. Hopefully, that one will be just as good. It will certainly be grand.