You know, the graduation gown is far more elegant a thing than I ever noticed before. Perhaps it is just the emotional importance it receives when you yourself are graduating in one, but certainly I liked the way it flowed and billowed a little as people walked across the stage to receive their diploma. Colin Diver made a tasteless torture joke to start the gig off, but he seemed perplexed by Reedies — “I never know when you guys are going to laugh” — and I think he was impressed that the kids now giving him rubber chickens and swigs of imported rum had managed to get through one of the most academically challenging gauntlets known to man. But we did it! All of us, from Humanities to Thesis, shared a most amazing four years, more or less. Thanks to our friends from years ahead or behind or parallel, our families who paid tuition and sent care packages and gave birth to us for heaven’s sake, and a bunch of dedicated and talented professors and faculty members who tended our eager brains.

Sometimes it felt like having a whole support staff just for me… other times it felt like Reed hated my guts. But I would never trade my two years of living with my beloved dorm family; my irrepressible crush and unrelenting romance with my bean, Thomas; my hated apartment (no, living is not more fun in the Wimbledons, no matter what they tell you) and the subsequent flight to Greece; my frustration and joy with veganism and health-consciousness; my forays into the many realms of linguistics and my return with sweet thesis honey. The good, the bad, the pretty. I’ll take it all and do it again in a heartbeat. (Well, okay… maybe two heartbeats. I need a breather.)

The most important thing about the diploma is not the piece of paper, or the prestige, or whatever advantage that might give me in terms of employment opportunities. Ultimately, I don’t think a little piece of paper can ever matter as much as the time spent in pursuit of it: my four years at Reed. Really, I might have happily walked up on stage, shook Diver’s hand, and said “No, thank you.” No diploma for me, thanks. If it weren’t silly to do so, I might have done that and not felt like the last four years of my life were wasted. Remember what Alan Watts said? Life is music, and you’re supposed to dance.

I don’t know how to dance properly, but when I’m not self-conscious about it, I sure have fun!