2001.05.19

Four years and seven semesters of blood, sweat, and tears (not to mention sleep deprivation, ruined eyesight, and way more than my fair share of Asians) finally led up to this: graduation from UC Berkeley with a BS degree. Woo hoo! And so it was, on an ass early Saturday morning...

As the doors officially opened at 8am (for the 9am ceremony), people were gathered all over the place outside the Greek Theatre way before then. It was nuts! I hadn't seen so many people since waiting in line for Stealth at Great America last year.

Here's a shot of me with Ted before the whole thing began...and before the effects of hat head (due to the grad cap) took over. On that note, what was with the caps we wore? Well, I mooched my sister's idea from last year and put my last name in chinese on the thing. Ted got Tracy to spell out "TED" on his. They're for easy identification in the crowd later on...really!

And as they finally let people in, it was basically a mad rush: for the graduates, a rush to find people backstage, and for the audience, a mad rush for prime seating. As a graduate, I found that it was amazing how many people could fit in a backstage area if you pack them in like sardines....

Here's a bunch of us from EE141: Chris "Muffy" Bareng, Alex Chan, Jason "Sput(nik)" Potnik, Andy Choy, and me.

And this is a shot of me with Ann, Stella's ex-roommate who graduated in December and actually got a job in hi-tech before the economy went ka-putz.

Eventually, the procession starts, with all them Civil Engineers going first (alphabetically...I think). Then eventually, all of us EECS folk worked our way and filled nearly the entire section.

Here's a shot of the empty seating area as graduates begin to file in.

And here's the orchestra dudes playing "Pomp & Circumstance" for probably the millionth time in their lives. I wonder if they ever get sick of it...

And EECS begins to file in...

Here's a shot I took while processing in...this crowd is much bigger than the one that showed up for Convocation. I guess this just goes to show who's more popular among the Berkeley crowd between Prof. Gronsky and Janet Reno...yup yup.

Because my sister wanted a shot like this, Ted and I stood on our chairs and waved to her camera. How cheesy...though it does look kinda funny...

Here, Prof. Gronsky leads the rush of faculty onto the stage...

And here is his opening speech...the beginning of a long series of speeches...

And then the speeches began...and kept going, and going, and going. It was about this time when I began to whip out the bubbles to keep myself amused (and awake). It was also a time of looking around and talking to the people around me, and wondering how long it would all last....

Here's a shot of my hat next to Ted's. See - decorating the cap makes it easy for people to identify me...even if that means they can identify that I was the one blowing the bubbles that popped on professors sitting on stage...hehehe.

This is a wide-angle shot of the whole stage as one of them IEOR Profs (I like the red outfit...looks more like one giant red hood than a gown) was going up to hood some IEOR PhDs.

Looking around, I noticed that one guy had Larry the Cucumber (from Veggie Tales' "Silly Songs with Larry") on his cap.

Here are the people who were sitting to my left: Ann Hsueh, Stella Loh, and Brian Witt. Ok, so there were more, but only these were looking at the camera....

So after all that stuff - the speeches, and the hooding of the doctoral candidates - they finally get to the "degree factory" part of the ceremony, where they announce all the Masters and Bachelors candidates. Let the popularity contest begin!

About the time they're ready to honour each Masters candidate, they wheel out this huge cart full of scrolls (which are supposed to represent diplomas) to hand to each one as he/she crosses the stage. Ted and I figured that this is the best sign that Berkeley truly is merely a degree factory.

And Dean Newton takes his place, ready to churn out degree after degree....

And here are a ton of Masters candidates waiting to have their names called across the stage...I couldn't help but think that after all that they've been through, here's yet another LINE they have to wait in. sheesh!

And finally, our row stands up and waits in the queue.

Here's the view of it all from the front of the crowd.

And here's Ted walking across the stage after his name was called.

And here's a high-five between me and Prof. Pister on my way off stage.

While all this was going on, an airplane flew overhead with a little message from the Engineering Alumni Society. Looks like they're trying to con us into giving them our money or something....

And so after all was said and done, it was 12:05pm, marking the first time in recent memory that the Engineering graduation had gone past noon, even if only by a teeney little bit. Following that was free food at Bechtel for the EECS people, and a lot of photo-ops of people with severe hat-head (yay for caps! woo hoo!)

So here's the customary shot of Ted and me standing on a bench looking crazy.

And the customary shot of Ted, Tracy, and me....

And a shot of me with Shirley and Yolanda (both of whom are moocows in training, mind you)

Here we have Andy and me, forced into photo ops because our mommies know each other from years and years ago.

This is me with Kathy, who also took this picture herself...

And here's a shot of me and Calvin (switched-at-birth twin) with Theresa, the one who introduced us. Yay!

And so after all was said and done, the food was gone, the weather hot, and the flowers wilting, but I had finally graduated. And to think - in another two years, I get to do it all over again, but hopefully with one of them spiffy yellow hood thingies around my neck.