commencement – sunday may 16

But the big deal for the weekend was Sunday’s Commencement.  And the big deal about GWU’s commencement is that it is held on the National Mall.

As such, we had to get there early to be able to get a decent parking spot. 

Two blocks from the commencement but in the view of the Capitol Building so we’ll take it.

Because of the presence of Mrs. Obama as the commencement speaker, the graduates (and only the graduates) had to go through “extensive” security.
 
There was list checking, ID checking against the list, bag searching, and metal detector-ing.  And they didn’t even check the tickets that were supposedly required to attend commencement for guests.

Amazingly they did manage to get all of the graduates through security before the “processional” began.
 
Even with the Capitol in background, I still look like a dork.
Secret Service, SWAT police and a fellow graduate expressing what the majority of us felt.

The “processional” was ridiculous and uncouth.  On the National Mall, one would expect an amount of pomp and circumstance if you will excuse the pun.  The “processional” consisted of a half hour of the camera men panning the crowd and getting the reactions.  I do wonder though if it had something to do with security because the First Lady was there.

Eventually the program began.  There was all the usual stuff that I’ll skip because it’s boring.

The first honorary doctorate was given to Dave Brubeck, a big deal jazz musician.  Will was super dorkily excited about getting to see him.  Surprisingly, he gave a short speech after accepting his honorary degree.

This clip, I believe, includes the whole process so you’ll have to go a few minutes in to hear his remarks.

Next up, the owner of Clark Construction, R. J. Clark, was given an honorary doctorate in engineering – something you don’t see all that often I don’t think.
 
There’s that orange that I wore proudly for my undergraduate commencement.  Typical for an engineer, he said maybe a sentence.

And finally we were at the point everyone was there for – I mean, really, it wasn’t about the graduates for a lot of people. 

It was time for Mrs. Obama.  She was awarded an honorary doctorate in Public Service.  Clearly a nod to the challenge she’d set forth for the student body.

In a slight departure from the usual format, she did not immediately begin her commencement address.  First President Knapp began by announcing the results of the challenge – 163,180 hours!  Pretty amazing.

This was followed up with a compilation video of moments throughout the year –

The video was actually rather moving and set the stage for the First Lady’s speech perfectly.

It’s a little on the long-ish side but she was very inspirational.  Encouraging the students to make a lifelong commitment to service and to be global citizens – well, that part I didn’t quite get because when she put forth the challenge, she seemed to want the focus to be on local service.  But it was still a great message.

You can read a transcript of her speech here.

Then there was a little thing wherein President Knapp conferred all the degrees upon the graduates – our real purpose for the day.  And then it seemed rather unceremoniously over.

I waited on the wall of the National Museum of the Native American for my people. 

Time for pictures when they finally arrived, of course.

 
Liz had come out to see me graduate – it had nothing to do with the choice of commencement speaker.  Proud parentals. 

Will’s just glad that we don’t have to worry about GW for any reason ever again.

So then it was time for my graduation lunch.  I chose Ping Pong Dim Sum in Chinatown – it was close enough to the Mall, Liz had just been there and liked it, and Mom loves Dim Sum.

First we almost gave the host a heart attack when Dad asked how we were going to fit 5 people at a 4 person table – he didn’t realize that sadly Liz wasn’t staying for lunch and would leave when Will got back from parking the car.  Then I think we annoyed our waitress by refusing to order for the longest time because we were waiting for Will to get back.

Once we did order, the food came fast and furious – dim sum at Ping Pong is kind of like Chinese tapas.  As a result, there’s no pictures of the food.  It was superb though.  We had some really tasty dishes – actually there wasn’t a single one that we didn’t enjoy.

Will and I want to go back and sit at the bar and watch them plate the dishes.  The only problems we had were that our waitress was subpar and all of their water glasses taste salty because they use the same glasses for their margaritas.

It was a great end to a fun-filled weekend.

school o’ business – friday, may 14

A mere 9 months after I was finished attending classes. 

Nine months after my degree had been conferred upon me. 

Six months after I received my diploma in the mail. 

And nearly a month since I got my beautifully framed diploma back from Michael’s.

It was time for my actual graduation. 

My parents drove down on Friday to begin the festivities with the School of Business Celebration at the Charles E. Smith Center (aka the dinkiest basketball arena in which I’ve ever watched the Flyers play).

Well, first we went to dinner at Founding Farmers near campus.  Because the ceremony was at 7:30, we had early reservations and got to the restaurant even earlier.  The hostess told us that our table would be ready in about 10-15 minutes.

One drawback to Founding Farmers for those who are a little older and/or have bad knees is that the “seats” in their waiting area are very low to the ground – probably only about 2-2.5’ high.  We could have waited in the bar but there were no seats in the bar.  So we stood until I asked the hostess if it would be possible for us to be seated sooner because my parents really needed to sit down.  She said that our table was ready – well, we got seated but the other hostess still had to pull 2 tables together for us so they weren’t actually ready.

Now FF’s whole shtick is that the are one of the first green restaurants in the city – LEED certified building, locally sourced foods from farmers who follow sustainable growing practices, organic foods.  As a result the decor is a lot of neat reclaimed wood, the water bottles for the table are old school milk bottles, a lot of bamboo, and a few of the tables in the bar area appeared to be made out of tree stumps.

The menu was almost overwhelming in its delicious sounding choices.  We had a flatbread appetizer with brie and onion marmalade.  Mom and I ended up splitting a salad and in the end Dad gave a big portion of his lettuce wedge to Will.  Mom and I both had fantastic scallops with butternut squash risotto (only slightly marred by the presence of green peas).  Will had shrimp and grits (only slightly marred by lots of tomatoes) that were pretty tasty.  Dad had the prime rib – SOOO good.

We didn’t have time to stay for dessert but we did peruse the menu just to see what our options were. 

Sadly the rain that had been forecast for the day decided right then to rear its ugly head necessitating umbrella usage and dashing through the rain.  At least it was short lived. 

Of course the break from the rain turned out to be short-lived as well.  As I stood on the corner of G and 22nd trying to put on my regalia, there was a loud clap of thunder and literally 2 seconds later a deluge.  Thankfully Will was quick with the umbrella so Mom and I didn’t get too wet but Dad wasn’t as fortunate.  As we huddled with other graduates and family members next to Duques, I discovered that I didn’t know where I was supposed to be so there was a bit of fortuitousness to the rain.

The rain held off long enough for all the graduates to process across the street and into the Smith Center.  Mother Nature really wanted to make her presence known however.  During the National Anthem, it must have started storming again because when she got to the “bombs bursting in air,” there was another loud clap of thunder.

Our keynote speaker was Marcia Bullard, former CEO of USA WEEKEND and founder and member of the board for Make a Difference Day, a day of service sponsored by USA TODAY.  She was kind of interesting but didn’t know her audience.  She seemed to get us confused with the undergraduates continuously referring to us as “millennials” even though the majority of the graduate school class was over 30 and not even close to being a millennial.  She did make an interesting point that I hadn’t thought of before.  She suggested that no matter what you’re doing with your career, you should give up a part of your time for service, in particular by serving on the board of directors of a non-profit that interests you – both to give back and to learn a different way of doing business.

Then it was time to “get our diplomas.”  I thought the way they do it is rather lame though I would guess that it’s a common practice.  We were all given a card on which to write our name and then hand to the person “reading” the names.  No order.  Not terribly special.  Very weird to me after our UD graduation wherein they called out the name of each and every graduate at commencement.  We weren’t even given an approximation of our diplomas, receiving instead GW travel wallets.

And all of a sudden it was all over and we were being pushed out into the humid streets (I’d actually defied all the rules and gotten back into the arena to meet up with my folks but we did lose Dad in the process).

We attempted to go to the reception in Duques but it was just too packed so we walked in one door and out the one on the other side.  The desserts at Founding Farmers were calling us.  We were told that the wait would be about 25-30 min but we were able to get seats at the bar.  And dessert was definitely worth coming back for.  Mom and I shared a huge bowl of chocolate mousse – AMAZING.  Dad had carrot cake and Will had a banana split.
 
Will’s artsy shot of the bar – the only picture to come out nice.

posting

It's a slow day (I should probably be doing some work but it was a long weekend and I'm tired with a distinct lack of focus) and sometimes I like to read over my blog entries when I get bored.

Sometimes I find mistakes. Sometimes I correct them; sometimes I don't (that usually depends on what I want to change and how our network is acting that day).

Sometimes I add tags to posts.

Sometimes I think about posts that I want to write.

Well, in my perusing today I realized that I'm behind in posting and things are either going to stay behind or are going to get out of chronological order. And I can't decide which is going to annoy me more.

So here are some things that I am planning to post about in the near future:

~ the art installations at Coachella. There is some video editing involved in this so there is a time commitment that needs to be made. I'm not too upset about this getting out of "order" because I've told most of our Coachella story already.

~ new bands that we are thoroughly enjoying post-Coachella (ones that we saw and ones that we didn’t). Again not a big deal to be "out of order" but it’s something I’ve been dreaming up.

~ the rest of our trip to CA - San Francisco (and Pixar) and Sacramento (and sign). I feel like this one is already lost in the chronology because I've already posted about preparations for my parents' visit for my graduation. This annoys me.

~ which brings us to, my graduation weekend: Friday's School of Business celebration, Saturday's visit to Georgetown's Tudor Place, and Sunday's Commencement (you know I will do each as a separate post).

~ American Wife, a book that I finished at least 2 weeks ago.

That's 8 posts right there without anything else happening or popping up in my head (like a thanks to Susan, happy memorial day).

Oh man, I have my work cut out for me and a busy week ahead with softball, PT, and book club (that’ll be another book post if I finish it).

Whew.

service challenge met

I got my first e-mail today with regard to my graduation ceremony today.

Actually, it was the same e-mail twice.

And yes, I finished my degree last August and already have my diploma even but had a choice of walking before I was done or waiting and in deference to someone getting her undergraduate degree, I chose to wait.

It got me wondering about the First Lady’s Service Challenge and how the students were doing.  Well, as you can see, the students have met the challenge with a month to spare (the deadline was May 1).

So it’s official, the First Lady will be the keynote speaker at GWU’s commencement this year – my commencement. 

How cool is that?

Here’s the official press release.

Now I have to worry about plans for my graduation!

gw service challenge update

On Tuesday, I went to GW's volunteermatch website to record the few hours of shelf-reading we'd done on Sunday (wherein I unintentionally redid the shelves I've done before but that's another story) only to find that the website was down. I wasn't sure at first that it was the website so I did a little searching around. I confirmed that the website was down but also found the main website for the challenge which I hadn't seen before.

The website happened to answer a question that I'd had: are they in any way indicating how the students are doing in reaching the goal?

Answer: yes, they are with this handy little clock looking thing below.

I'm not sure how up-to-date the data is as shown on the clock but it at least indicates that in 4 months with 4 months to go, the students are very nearly half-way there. I'm impressed.

I hope my measly 12 hours is helping!

odd things i miss about grad school

Since about mid-September, it's finally been hitting me that I'm done. I don't have to worry about grad school, assignments, getting forms approved to get my classes paid for, being somewhere 2-3 nights a week, etc. But I've also begun to realize that there are things that I kind of miss too....

• having a specific purpose. Not a vague purpose but a specific "I have to read this chapter/article, write this paper, study for this test" purpose
• having things to do at work that, while not being work, aren't ultimately useless or aimless
• the random bits of computer time that I had while killing time between eating dinner and going to class - I haven't sent out a mass e-mail or cleaned out my yahoo inbox in ages (I have almost a 1,000 unsorted messages in my inbox)
• regularly getting Potbelly cookies on my way out of Ivory Tower
• the couscous salad, ravioli with broccoli salad, and pesto pasta salad from the buffet in Ivory Tower
• the hustle and bustle of being on campus
• being able to mentally make fun of all the fashion victim undergrads all the while wishing I had their disposable income
• not always having to travel home on Metro during rush hour
• the better people that I met and befriended (often just for the semester) in class
• the mental stimulation - I have way too much time to think about really dumb things now
• and, I'll admit it, having the excuse to slack off on housework and let my wonderful husband take care of me

(and yes, I am posting twice today both because I'm particularly bored and because I didn't post yesterday)

mission serve

I did find out that the challenge given to GW's students by Michelle Obama to complete 100,000 hours of service in return for a commencement speech in May 2010 is for real.

She set forth the challenge on September 11th as part of Pres. Obama's National Year of Service (as signed into legislation with the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act in April) and returned to GW on Veteran's Day to launch Mission Serve. In just 7 weeks, 19,000 hours had been recorded. I guess those annoying undergrads aren't as self-absorbed as I'd always thought. Go figure.

Even better - they still think I'm a student and I quite successfully signed up to record my volunteer hours to be included in the count. This is a good thing because, not being an actual student any longer, I have time for service. Looks like I have to step it up!

I may not be a huge fan of the President but I do like Mrs. Obama. How cool would it be if I were able to see her speak at my commencement?

you can find a short AP article on the event here.
you can find a copy of her remarks to GW on Veteran's Day here.
Picture courtesy of Mrs-O.

it's official!

On Saturday, I opened the door to find a fantastic surprise left on the doorstep by the postman. A large white envelope from The George Washington University.

It could only contain one thing.

My official diploma for my Master's of Business Administration.

We were on our way out to the store to do some last minute shopping for Halloween so I don't look great but it was a great moment that needed to be documented.

GW only does one commencement a year in the Spring so I could have walked last May but I chose not to in deference to my niece who was graduating from Fordham University on the same day. I'm still undecided as to whether I'll walk this coming Spring. Apparently, Michelle Obama has given the GW students a challenge in which she will give this year's commencement address if they complete 100,000 hours of service. I think I'll definitely go in that case.

Grad School Review - FINAL year

I took my final final exam this evening. Therefore, I thought it would be appropriate to finish the grad school recap even though I was trying to space it out a bit.

Fall ’08 ­– I took this semester off for obvious reasons. ;)

Spring ‘09
Procurement and Contracting – very straightforward, kind of boring. Easy A.
Strategic Environmental Management – totally interesting, engrossingly interesting even, while also being the most frustrating class ever. Dr. Starik is so knowledgeable but is so academic. Learned so much and annoyed Will talking about it the whole way home every week. Lucked out on a great group again but they ALL graduated on me. :(

Kogan Plaza

Summer ’09 aka “the summer in which I decided that I had to kill myself and finish”
Strategic Management – Dr. Cook is awesome. Learned so much but I would have enjoyed it more in Paris. We got our project together in 2 weeks and from what we gathered got the highest grade in the class.
Global Governance and Public Policy – I can hardly express how much I hated this class and the group I was stuck with. Dr. Forrer does not teach in a logical fashion and I got stuck with foreign girl who didn’t get it and finance boy who would say “yes, I’ll do that” and NEVER EVER do it! I hate POLICY.

Duqués at night

Government Accounting and Auditing – Prof Lewis is totally hyper and loves his subject matter even though it’s terribly boring. Governmental Budgeting would have been a more useful class but I had a conflict but this was interesting.

Grad School Review - Year 3

I had my last class yesterday.... yay!! on with the rest of my grad school recap....

Fall ‘07
Introduction to Project and Program Management – I HATED this class because it was less information than I’ve even had in 2 week workshops for work and therefore a waste of my time. Fun group though.
Business and Government Relations – Dr. Englander again! Turned out to be history of economics kind of but it was interesting and it was the last class I had with Courtney and Katie before they left me :(

Marvin Center with a dorm - quite the juxtaposition of new and old

Spring ’08 – this was a hard semester since I planned most of my wedding during it.
Information Systems Management – time-consuming because of the labs but they were easy and in the computer lab. Dr. Vikas is a funny little man. Not bad but I don’t want to do IT either.
Operations Management – lots of work but again a great group (one of my partners from PM). Basically stats with decision making – learned all sorts of fun Excel stuff.

Lisner Auditorium and Corcoran Hall

Summer ‘08
American Business History – interesting while I took it but it didn’t stick because history never does

Grad School Review - Year 2

Fall ‘06
Statistical Analysis – Dr. Z??? I didn’t like him but the Math geek in me loves statistics so, much to the dismay of most of my classmates, I loved it! And it was in a computer lab so I got to play on the internet half the time.
World Economics – they team teach this in the huge auditorium in Duqués. Hateful class. Both professors sucked and I was lost early on because I’ve never taken macro before.

on the edge of Kogan Plaza near Monroe and Government Halls

Spring ‘07
Financial Management – Dr. U?? is awesome but her name is weird so I don’t remember it. I didn’t like finance enough to pursue it but I met fun people in this class too (Katie!) and it’s math-y so I liked that too.
Individual and Group Dynamics – wow, ironically, I ended up in the worst group for this class. There was no structure to our final project and our group always disintegrated into me and Courtney against the other 2.

the hippo outside Lisner Auditorium

Summer ’07 – I took this summer off because they weren’t offering anything I wanted/needed. Now I know that I should have gone to Paris for Strategic Management with Katie and her friends.

Grad School Review - Year 1

The basic story is that I got bored living in VA, going to work in DC, not having a boyfriend, and not much else going on in my life. So early in 2005, I decided to go back to school to get my MBA. I did some research and intended on applying to George Washington, George Mason and American. I looked at Georgetown but they were just starting a part-time program and I didn't want to be a guinea pig. In the end, I only applied to and got accepted at George Washington and Foggy Bottom became my after work haunt 2 nights a week. Granted, I got a boyfriend (and now husband) before I got started with classes so I had the life I was looking for but I did it anyway. Why? I'm a glutton for punishment, the Navy was paying for the classes (with nothing asked of me in return), and hopefully someday, it'll get me out of working for the DoD.

Fall ‘05
Human Dynamics in Organizations – actually, not as bad as it sounds and I met 2 lovely ladies in this class but both finished before me :( We would have done better on our project had we not forgotten to tack on the discussion questions at the end.
Financial Accounting – um, when you’re a Math major and think logically, accounting is easy-peesy. Loved it but not enough to be an accountant.

Spring ‘06
Managerial Economics for MBA – econ sometimes escapes me but I like it. Nam Pham is an AWESOME professor. So much fun!
Managerial Accounting – HATEFUL class! Mostly because of our old Asian professor. He refused to use a textbook and I swear never told us when we actually had the answer right. I spent the semester comparing it to being taught by your grandpa. The only class I’ve gotten less than an A- in.

Summer ‘06
Marketing Management – Dr. Divita is awesome but has since retired. Somehow I ended up in a group in which I was the one to get it. It was weird to me because I didn’t think I would get marketing.
Business and Public Policy – Dr. Ernie Englander, how I wished he taught more classes. He managed to make the driest material interesting. Seriously, we studied Sarbanes-Oxley most of the session and it was interesting.