Day After

It's sooooo quiet on campus the day after graduation. I didn't have to dedicate time answering phone calls and emails from frantic students about their presentations or research papers. It was simply peaceful.

Yesterday's graduation was truly an event for me. For the first time, I was acting in the official capacity as a professor with "all the rights and privileges" that my degree and rank afforded to me. You see I never went to my own graduation. Mine was rather anti-climatic, and if anything, I was more ecstatic at the thought of putting behind me ten years of friendly fascism from my school. I just wanted to leave and move on with my life and career. I don't know if "hate" is the right word to express my sentiments, but it's pretty damn close.

But at yesterday's graduation as the faculty gathered in ARH before our procession, I felt proud and privileged to be a part of this community of intellectuals at this institution. As we marched out, the graduating seniors and their families applauded us. Many of them cheered and called out our names. Donning the medieval regalia became more than dressing up for this ritual called "graduation." It was being recognized for our work and acknowledging an accomplishment not measured in the number of articles that I publish or grants that I receive, but from the smiles and endless "thank you's" from my students and their families. For the first time in quite a long while, I felt really great about being a professor, teacher, and scholar. For me, yesterday's ceremony was, in many ways, my own graduation, and that is a moment I will always be grateful for.

Besides, when and where else can anyone don flowing black and blue robes lined with the colors of knowledge and it'll be okay to yell out "Expelliarmus!"?

Of course, it was just a passing temptation for me. =D