Graduation Photos

I have a selection of photos from Em's graduation to post. These were all taken by Frances during or after the graduation, so all the credit is hers.

Here we have the story of the graduation, in pictures:
Here we have two of the audience eagerly waiting for the ceremony to start. We found a good set of seats up in the bleachers and settled in and started reading the program. In this picture, Jonathan is smiling like crazy at the camera, because Frances is taking the picture (presumably? or maybe he's just always smiley!), and Mom is reading the program, probably looking for Em's name. The program was actually pretty interesting, I especially liked the section where it gives the names of all the doctoral thesises (thesii? theseses?), because it contained all of them, hard science ones and movie/theater ones, and so on.
Here we have L and myself before the ceremony started. I think L is playing Animal Crossing, and I'm reading the program as mentioned before. The waiting for the ceremony went on for a while, and then finally it began! Everyone stood up and there was in general a whole lot of noise. The entire row of us waited in anticipation as the graduates filed into the stadium, until this happened:
Emily appears! We were looking in the right spot and though it took a while, she shows up, walking in with Zev in front of her, and Margaret behind. Except in this picture, it's not really apparent that they're in that particular order, but it will soon be clear! Notice also that Emily has immediately spotted us in the stands, and is smiling like crazy, which is good cause we were smiling like crazy too and waving our arms, and hats, and there was even some jumping up and down. Emily, having spotted us, immediately decides to show her friends where we are sitting:
I'm told that this was pretty unsuccessful, even though we were wearing some memorable hats and waving and stuff, there were probably a lot of other people in the stands wearing memorable hats and waving and so on.
And now they have arrived at their seats! This is about ten or fifteen minutes into the ceremonial procession, and so they got to face the audience for a while, because no-one was up on the stage yet and so it would be pretty boring to face the opposite way. It took another fifteen minutes for the rest of the people to arrive in the stadium, during which time several of us got tired of standing up and sat down. Others of us went looking for other things to take pictures of. Like this one:
That is one huge ring! I'm not sure whose hand+ring+cell phone this is, but it's a great picture. Also during this time, we noticed that on one building adjacent to the field (I think it was the sports trainer's complex, or locker room building, or something like that), the following was going on:
Setting up for dinner! These waiters were bringing tables out, setting up tablecloths and stopping every once in a while to check out the commotion on the field adjacent to them. "What's this, a graduation going on? I hope they're done by the time our dinner guests are here."

Meanwhile, everyone is still entering the stadium, and it has become a lot harder to actually spot Emily in the crowd, even though we know where she is standing. Luckily, Frances is really good at this:
Yep, there she is! It really looks like Zev and Margaret have just vanished, though.

I now arrive at the point in the story where a very important point must be made. Remember when I said that we were all standing up and cheering as Emily entered the stadium? And then after a while, some of us got tired and sat down? Well, even as it rolled along to minute 30 of the processional entering the stadium, this one was still cheering:
Yep. The whole 30 minutes. I'm really surprised Mom still had a voice after that was done. :)


Next we have the really important part: people gave speeches, the speaker talked, groups of students stood up as the head honcho read out the degrees they were awarded. All this, however, really doesn't lend itself to my telling the story in pictures though, and so I will refer you back to my previous post about the graduation speaker if you want to get a better idea for this part. Frances did take pictures here, so ask her for them if you're really dying to see some pictures of the speaker, and so on.

The next part, however, is VERY important, because it is at the end of the ceremony, and Emily is so very happy that it is now bubble time!
During the ceremony, it looked like a bunch of people in the school of communication had bubble stuff, because there were huge amounts of soap bubbles floating up above them. It was only at this point, when people were departing, that we find out that Em is one of the ones blowing bubbles!
I especially like this picture, as it appears that Zev is blowing imaginary bubbles, and the guy in the same row on the far right is looking really jealously at the bubble blowing fun.
Finally, the whole thing is over and we spent a while trying to find everyone in the crowd. Luckily, we do, and there are two more great pictures:
Mom and Dad and Emily!

The kids! No, I'm not sure why we are balancing the tall people on the left side and the short ones on the right. Maybe we were trying to balance the hats, one on the far left, and one on the far right? Anyways, there you have it, a picture-version of Emily's graduation.