Mass Comm graduates are fortunate enough to have their recognition rites and the university graduation rites fall within the same day, with ample time in between for a luncheon celebration. Graduates from other colleges in UP Diliman had theirs on separate days.

My family and I had to wake up really early last April 27, because we were repeatedly advised to arrive early at 7 AM because seats for guests were apparently limited, and that the college recognition rites were to start strictly at 8 AM. Wake up early we did, but the rites didn’t really start on time.

It was a relatively brief recognition rites. Everyone was called on stage together with their parents to receive their certificates of merit and rolled pieces of blank paper. There were the usual speeches and a couple of intermission numbers. One of which was an audio-visual presentation prepared by one of our batchmates. I appeared in the video, lying at the Sunken Garden musing at the sky.

I sort of got irked with what the college dean said in her speech, that as part of growing up we should become pragmatists instead of idealists. The guest speaker, Maryo de los Reyes, said something with the same thought, that we should always learn to work with the prevailing order and compromise. My goodness, what kind of uninspiring commencement speeches are these?

Anyway, the program ended a little more than an hour before noontime. My family proceeded to have lunch with my parents’ godparents at some buffet restaurant. I went in famished and I ended up eating too much. We even had to go home right after lunch before going back to UP for the university graduation rites because I had to spend some time in the toilet.