“It’s the end of the world as we know it …”

My family members came into town this past weekend to celebrate my graduation from the MBA program. And what a weekend it has been. We had a graduation party at Spice Street on Friday night. As I walked around the room talking to classmates and professors, it dawned on me that I did not send out nearly enough “thank you card” to all the people I wish to express my gratitude to. The highlight of the evening was when one professor who has had a bit too much to drink started dancing provocatively with a total stranger at the entrance lobby of the restaurant and everyone started gathering around watching, pointing, and laughing. It was hilarious for us to watch the spectacle unfold and the only thing that would have made it more entertaining was if we had been at Lucy’s and she would have had the ceiling heating pipes to swing from.

Saturday was pretty boring. There was a party at He’s Not Here, which I went but didn’t stay very long because not too many people were there. I ended up going to Top of the Hill where a friend of mine from college was hanging out with his sisters and her classmates, who were all celebrating their graduation from another graduate program at UNC.

I did not end up going to the morning “big” graduation ceremony yesterday but went to church instead. Last night’s MBA graduation at the Dean Dome was good. The guest speaker managed to spend only 23 minutes talking about himself. We then gave out awards to selected students in the class who have made extraordinary accomplishments. Then it was time for the graduates to line up to walk onto the stage and be officially announced, in alphabetical order. There was a bit of unexpected drama when it was my turn to approach the stage. I waited by the steps as the students ahead of me cleared out. This gave me the chance to thank one of the staffers in theMBA program office for her work over the past couple of years. She said “go ahead” and I walked up the steps and handed my name card over to the director of the MBA program so he could read my name onto the microphone. The director then waited for what felt like an eternity before reading out my name. During the next four seconds I imagined him turning around and saying “you’re not graduating today, get the heck out of here!” But instead he just turned around, looked at me, and said “dramatic pause” as he waited for the students ahead of me on the stage to clear out before calling my name.

After the ceremony, we had a reception outside of McColl and I had the chance to say goodbye to some classmates and also hello to a couple of their family members. Starting today members of the Class of 2007 will begin to clear out of Chapel Hill. It’s sad because as May becomes June more and more of the people that I am used to regularly running into will be gone. For many of us this is the end of the world as we know it. But because a significant (maybe even a majority) number of the people I am friends and acquaintances with are not in the MBA program, life for me in Chapel Hill will remain relatively unchanged. And because of that, I feel fine.