On How to Survive Pre-Graduation Rigamarole:

1. Wear comfortable shoes. This is actually just good advice for life, but still.


2. Get a cell phone. I spent most of an excruciatingly boring awards presentation ceremony text messaging my friends ("This is boring! Entertain me, monkey."), and I'll be doing the same thing tomorrow during the actual commencement ceremony. Sharing the misery helps, and as an added bonus, it takes a lot of time to type those messages with my phone's tiny keys, so time flies. Maybe this is a little irreverant, but please see the next item.


3. Be irreverant. At the awards dinner tonight, a graduate student was presented with the James W. Budd Award. When this award was announced, M4, Senior Birdman, and E4, in a weird hive-mind moment, all looked at me and whispered, "Buuuuuuuuud," like Rudy on The Cosby Show used to do. We proceeded to (quietly) crack up. Running under-the-breath commentary is crucial. Then, in collusion with the other family at our table, we played mind games with our waiter—conned him into leaving an extra dessert for the empty place at the end of the table, asking for another spoon and then giving him weird looks and denying that we wanted it when he brought it. Malice is fun.


4. Buy yourself something nice. In my case, this is, of course, books. Took the fam to Half-Price Books and bought about $80 of good reading material, including a couple of things on my summer reading list. Especially enjoyable because nobody was droning on about how smart Rice kids are and what an accomplishment graduation is.

So that's the story thus far. Tomorrow: On How to Survive Life in a Convection Oven.