Graduation Day Blues

An acquaintance of mine graduated over the weekend.

I didn’t really know her. She was a friend of a friend of a friend but I think we might have met and said hi, briefly. That was it.

Though a friend of mine did make it into the shot. Hey MediMart! Congrats if you read this!

Looking through her 87 or so photos on Facebook (seriously, no better place to stalk someone than Facebook. You can even browse their photos when you’re not friends with them. How dumb is THAT?), the little scenes and pictures and backgrounds were all familiar territory. In fact, not so long ago, I took my photos at those exact same spots.

But she looked happy. I wasn’t.

Perhaps I was over psyching myself up for it. I was bored, I couldn’t be bothered, I thought it was just another ceremony.

But man. Everyone looked so happy. It was another phase of their lives over. It was the end of university, where they would come out and celebrate and start the work of the rest of their lives.

Maybe they worked hard for it. You know, they actually put in hard work and effort and you know, actually deserved it. Thus the ear-to-ear grins and smiles on their faces as they wore the gowns and trenchers. (I think that’s what its called.)

For me, it was more of a “Meh. So what.”

But in retrospect, I guess I would like to be able to smile and congratulate people and myself and tell myself that this is what I’ve worked for and this is all worth it and I’m looking forward to starting the work of the rest of my life rather than b*tching about it the entire day. Heck, my entire family was more psyched up about my graduation than I was.

Funny. I had always imagine graduation to be one of the happiest days in my life. Instead, it turned out to be rather mediocre event.

And all I got was a piece of paper worth 4 years of graduate school fees and being smacked on the head with a trencher.