Reach for the stars and you might get sucked in by their gravitational pull and burned alive in the vacuum of space
So I recently had the misfortune of graduating. Graduating itself isn't so bad—suddenly people will pay you a lot more to do the same things you've done for the last 3 years...as if completing that final course in business ethics or whatever suddenly made you ten times more valuable. Then again, having a business ethics class could eliminate problems like Enron—once you've had an ethics class, you KNOW that the things you're doing are unethical, so you'll be sure not to tell anyone about them, which could save the company a lot in the long run.
Anyway, the real pain of graduation comes from the commencement process. It's like the university has one final chance to twist the dagger, and so they pull the dagger out, replace it with a rusty shovel, and jump on it for a while. They make you and a few thousand other people dress up in the same outfit—a rented plastic nightgown and a modern twist on a jester's cap—and then line up so they can recite all of your names to you. It's all about as interesting and stimulating as an Andy Warhol painting. In the 3 hours I spent waiting to walk across the stage to the sound of my own name, I clipped my fingernails and filed them down into tiny, razor-sharp throwing stars to hurl at the bursar when I passed him. Unfortunately, I missed my big chance because I fell asleep somewhere in the middle of the Joneses. I only woke up because I heard "YOU GO MICHELLE!" shouted from the balcony by someone with a minimum wage job.
The worst part of commencement, though, is the speech. They always try to bring in some sort of marginally famous person to talk about the merits of higher education, since you clearly need convincing at this point. That or they bring in a successful businessman who makes a living by raping consumers and get them to talk about family values. There are a few different types of commencement addresses, and they're all terrible:
-The billionaire high school dropout speech: "I didn't go to college and I'm a billionaire, which puts you at least 5 years behind already. But I guess it's good that you did this anyway."
-The too-late "you can do anything!" speech: these guys tell you about how you can do anything you want with your life, despite the fact that you just earned a specialized degree that determines a rather limited number of things that you can really do with your life. For example, the art history majors can do anything they want, as long as they want to work at Starbucks and never earn more than $8.50 an hour, EVER. Physical education majors hopefully have their sights set on prison. And the psychology majors, for example, can make babies.
-The "you're about to enter the real world" speech that delays your entrance into the real world by at least 30 minutes.
If I had to give a commencement address, I'd make it cool and interesting. I could give a "98% of you will never do anything important" speech about the importance of working hard at the office so The Man can keep burning his silk socks after wearing them once.
Better yet, I could incorporate some kind of activity. I'd talk about how, chances are, one of them will die tragically within the next year. Then I'd get everyone to give me a picture of themselves with a fun little phrase written on the back. Then I'd keep tabs on all of the kids, and when one of them inevitably dies, I'd mail all of the pictures to their grieving parents to console them, with a note on top saying "Check out all these people who aren't dead like your son or daughter is!" Maybe I could also follow up with all of the English majors by sending them the picture of the deceased with a note saying "This guy's dead...why aren't you?"
Next time I go to college I'm just going to freakin' drop out before the end so I don't have to go through that crap again.
