Commencement

Last Friday was our graduation commencement from CIA at Greystone. It was a bittersweet celebration to say the least. While we're all really excited about moving on to our externships, none of us were prepared to leave the people with whom we've basically spent every waking hour for the past 15 months.

Nonetheless, graduation commenced, and things went pretty smoothly. I was elected to give the student welcome speech. My propensity for long speeches was squelched by the fact that I had a splitting headache, which I attribute to a shot of Jameson from the night before (courtesy of Garrett). So I kept it short and sweet.

After commencement, we all had lunch in the Barrel Room before heading our separate ways. I pulled the band-aid off quickly by driving to San Francisco that evening to visit Tim and flying out the next morning.

As I mentioned to my classmates, it didn't really hit me until I was sitting at the Oakland Airport, waiting to board my flight, listening to the cheesy Christmas music playing over the audio system. I'm going to miss everyone.