My friend Gustavo graduated from University this weekend! He is now the proud holder of a public relations diploma as well as a job with IBM! I am so proud of him and it was so nice for him to include me in the celebration festivities.
The ceremony where the graduates actually receive their diplomas was on Friday. I went along as well but failed to bring my camera so I unfortunately do not have any photos of Gu in his cap and gown. The ceremony was really nice, there were about 40-50 graduating students I would guess. They have a very formal entrance where each student enters more or less separately and files up to the front. There were 3 nice speeches that I was able to understand about 50% of (pretty good don't you think?!) Then came the calling of the names. Now, in both of my graduation ceremonies there were hundreds of names to go through, so it was impractical to pause after each name and celebrate individually. Despite this making the event a bit anti-climatic (after all you did just spend 4 years of your life slaving over text books to be standing at this moment) the process was remarkably efficient and simple. This practice either does not apply to smaller groups of graduates or the efficiency argument is trumped by some need to honor each student. This was the case for these 40-50 students. I hate to say it... but I was not interested in clapping after the 4th name was called. I was even less interested in watching each student hug each of the 6 school board members. Regardless it was fun to jump up and clap for Gustavo when his name was called. He did look very nice in his cap and gown!
The following day (Saturday) there is the big celebration party. Gustavo described it to me as a Barbie Dream Dance for girls (or basically a prom). I was excited to be invited to go, so I went out to find new shoes and ended up with a new dress as well - what to do about impulse buys?! Here are some photos of the night. It was a long night to say the least. Started around 11:30, got home at 6AM with sore, but not as bad as I was expecting, feet. Very fun to be apart of the activities.
The ceremony where the graduates actually receive their diplomas was on Friday. I went along as well but failed to bring my camera so I unfortunately do not have any photos of Gu in his cap and gown. The ceremony was really nice, there were about 40-50 graduating students I would guess. They have a very formal entrance where each student enters more or less separately and files up to the front. There were 3 nice speeches that I was able to understand about 50% of (pretty good don't you think?!) Then came the calling of the names. Now, in both of my graduation ceremonies there were hundreds of names to go through, so it was impractical to pause after each name and celebrate individually. Despite this making the event a bit anti-climatic (after all you did just spend 4 years of your life slaving over text books to be standing at this moment) the process was remarkably efficient and simple. This practice either does not apply to smaller groups of graduates or the efficiency argument is trumped by some need to honor each student. This was the case for these 40-50 students. I hate to say it... but I was not interested in clapping after the 4th name was called. I was even less interested in watching each student hug each of the 6 school board members. Regardless it was fun to jump up and clap for Gustavo when his name was called. He did look very nice in his cap and gown!
The following day (Saturday) there is the big celebration party. Gustavo described it to me as a Barbie Dream Dance for girls (or basically a prom). I was excited to be invited to go, so I went out to find new shoes and ended up with a new dress as well - what to do about impulse buys?! Here are some photos of the night. It was a long night to say the least. Started around 11:30, got home at 6AM with sore, but not as bad as I was expecting, feet. Very fun to be apart of the activities.
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| My new dress! All ready to go out and celebrate with Gustavo! |
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| Sitting in my air conditioned room trying not to melt. It is so hot here! Lacy, I think of you getting ready in our NYC apartment all the time now as I sweat in an effort to look pulled together. |
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| Gustavo!! So happy to be done with university! |
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| Gu with his brother - acting silly on the dance floor. |
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| Gu and I stumbled upon this colorful chair... little did we know when we found it what was intended for... |
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| Tequila shots... that was it's purpose. |
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| Tequila shots followed by several very fast spins!! Round and Round!! |
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| Oh my... |
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| Sabrina (Gu's friend) and I having fun drinking Caiparinhas! |
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| Gu and I - looking pretty happy there Gustavo... *wink* |
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| Gustavo and another graduate.. I forget his name but he lived in Pennsylvania for a while, so we bonded over or mutual American experiences. |
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| Me, Gu, and Sabrina - the night was starting to wind down... I'm going to guess this was taken at ~ 4:00AM |
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The engineer in me got excited about this contraption. It is a series of drums that can all be beat at the same time by pulling a lever at the bottom. They are shallow, tight topped drums so the effect is a bit like symbols being smashed together without the metallic bite to them. |
In other news... I learned that a Gate Valve, when translated from Portuguese to English is a Guillotine Valve.... somehow shutting of flow of liquids or moving particles (powder, gas, etc) feels so violet and French Revolutionary!!
3 comments:
You look gorgeous! So glad that you had such a good time! :)
Well, I was not the first to leave a comment this time.
Anyway... I just remembered that in English you guys call the "Guillotine Valve" a "Knife Gate Valve". Still in time to correct that, right?!
PS: didn't know someone's been drinking tequila AND caipirinha on the same night. ;P
you look beautiful. love that dress!!!
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