So I've mastered the viola, eh? Right...

In case anyone stumbles upon this blog and wonders why in the world we're wearing PINK tassles of all colors, it's the graduation color for music. Our hoods also had purple on them, so we were quite the sight, I'm sure. Anyway, the ceremony was obnoxiously long, and I felt bad because I had told my family it would probably be short since only about 140 of us were graduating. Welllll, the actual handing out of degrees/diplomas didn't take very long at all, but they had so many introductions and speeches for/from people receiving honorary doctorates and alumni achievement awards that the whole thing took 2 1/2 hours! Talk about unbearable. It's over now and I have my degree, so all is good.

My family (parents and sister) came up for this, which was nice, but it was especially nice to spend a lot of time with my sister. She stayed with me while my parents stayed with my aunt and uncle, who are 45 min away. Anyway, we're about 7-8 years apart, so I was kind of an only child in middle and high school, and then I've spent the last six years across the country in college and grad school. This means that we haven't ever gotten to spend a whole lot of time together in recent years. Besides driving to/from our aunt and uncle's house many times, we walked around the Hessler Street Fair and through some shops in Little Italy, ate at a lot of yummy places, got custard!, found me some new running shoes (and made fun of my old ones), went running a couple of times, and watched the Desperate Housewives finale with Amber. Anyway, it was fun and I'm glad that she came and stayed with me.