Well, last night was this year's business school convocation ceremony on my campus, wherein everybody who got degrees in various business disciplines within the past year or so, myself included, finally ended up receiving their degrees after many years of "battles" in this "war", especially in high school and college, which, for the most part, are (usually) the only such occasions marked by large-scale ceremonies, although I've increasingly noticed some lower-level schools holding "graduation" ceremonies - in fact, the end of my middle school years were actually marked here just days after my last day there, to witness one of my cousins "graduate" middle school, although that essentially involved getting all of them lined up on stage in the auditorium in that high school building and having their names announced individually, so, essentially, like what happened just last night, except (A) indoors, and (B) on a smaller scale, along with, also, pretty much being the opposite of how my high school handles its annual ceremonies, sending students to the original high school building here, which I think I mentioned a few days ago; anyway, getting back to the present day, there were only a few names I personally recognized out of the 700+ names read out by the weirdly "futuristic" voiceover software...
Otherwise, I'd say I still ended up feeling just about as "lonely" deep down inside with hearing and seeing many of the other students around me all congratulating each other, even after heading to this Peruvian restaurant close by and "downing" one of these in what would usually be a more "celebratory" mood, at least for most people - like, I swear, I've felt more "welcomed" at places like MSG, even, over the years, than I did just last night, despite practically being guaranteed to be around 99.99% "complete strangers" in those venues, and I've even felt less nervous entering those places on all the occasions I have, since, then, it was other people who always ended up being "front-and-center", like various college teams, or, in the case of this old sporting venue, the Devils/Nets, along with this (original Yankee Stadium) and this (original Meadowlands Stadium); add to that the various college sporting venues (Army football; Princeton hockey; Stony Brook football; Yale hockey; various more "minor" college sports venues - places, I should mention, in which I've already felt sort of "awkward" feelings, so I think it'll only end up being even weirder still heading to those places in the future, after these graduation ceremonies...) I've visited up until now, along with all the domestic and international places I've traveled to throughout my life so far, and that easily adds up to hundreds of hours spent around, again, "complete strangers", yet at least then, in those places, I've pretty much always known going in that that would be the case; I just never expected that whole "mentality" to extend to the evening of my undergraduate business school graduation ceremony, though, in which I spent the first however many minutes just standing and waiting for everybody to get seated, along with noticing everybody else finding their families/friends/relatives/
"(That being said, though, I have this weird feeling, deep down inside, that me changing from finance to marketing ended up getting me "left behind" in terms of graduating "alongside" any of those people, and I'm honestly a bit ticked, also, deep down inside, that certain other things didn't turn out differently along the way; I'm sure, though, that the whole "spirit" of college graduation in general will still end up allowing me to celebrate somewhat, despite me most likely knowing few, if any, of the people who will also end up "walking" in ceremonies a week apart from each other beyond being "acquaintances"/"classmates"!)
...as I mentioned to you a few days ago, though, I honestly pity those people who end up "peaking" at this point in their lives, since doing that essentially means they've ended up doing just about nothing "noteworthy" in their lives after their "college years", although I'm sure things similar to what I'd say I currently happen to be going through myself can still end up "de-railing" just about anything that people might have in mind for the future - maybe just taking some "me time" out of certain days this summer, like wandering around N.Y.C. every so often, using up those two 40% off Amtrak coupons at some point within the next couple of months (expiring 7/16), or even re-visiting the various schools in which I had spent the previous "levels" of my education, now that I've essentially "made it"; in other words, I'll do and/or take just about anything (healthy) at this point in order to allow me to feel a bit more "hopeful" about my future once again sooner rather than later!
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