Just wanted to share a short recap of the past 2 days of my life!
Ran errands with Ading Alexa in the morning - shopping downtown and getting flowers/leis for Ate Kay and Ate Alysa. Made a few posters with Camille and Elle.
The dinner before PGRAD was nice. It was nice to see everyone with their families, but it was bittersweet realizing that in a year this will be me. Was able to catch up with Berlyn, who I haven’t really talked to since last year! He was contemplating about whether he should go to the UCI ceremony where President Obama was going to be the featured speaker. I told him that he should, because it’s a once in a lifetime opportunity. How many people can say that they’ve heard the President speak live? Since I was already heading towards LAX/Irvine, I offered him a ride, and he spontaneously asked me if I would want to join him because he had an extra ticket. I MEAN I WASN’T GOING TO PASS UP SEEING BARACK OBAMA. So we made tentative plans for later to go to the ceremony at like 6 or 7 in the morning.
Back to the ceremony, I was so proud of Ate Alysa, Kay and Anthony Soriano. PGRAD took place in the Corwin Pavilion (which is such a nice venue compared to last year’s IV theatre) and lasted about 2 and 1/2 hours. Even though I was only here for a year with most of the seniors, I loved being able to cheer them on. I’m going to miss a lot of them so much, and I can’t believe that I won’t be seeing a lot of them for a long time.
After the ceremony ended, we all headed outside to take pictures.
There was the 2 hour drive to LAX with Josephine and Berlyn which went by quickly. Josephine did a random personality test, we talked about boys and relationships, KP, and a bunch of other stuff.
After annoying detours (which lasted about 20 minutes because we kept taking wrong turns), Berlyn and I finally arrived at Linda’s apartment in Irvine at 4:30. I was sooo tired, but she’s the best friend ever and stayed up to greet us. We were able to talk for a bit before I knocked out for an hour and half.
Berlyn and I woke up at 7:15 and got on the road at 7:30, expecting there to be crazy traffic jams leading up to Angel Stadium. Surprisingly, there was no traffic at all and we were able to find parking so quickly! We grabbed the tickets from Berlyn’s friend’s family, and were inside and seated by 8:06. Let the rapid heat waves and complaints about it being early morning begin. I still can’t believe that we had actually made it to the ceremony, and we were going to watch Barack Obama speak. Something I NEVER thought I would be able to experience. Besides burning in the heat in our nosebleeder seats, Berlyn and I attempted to entertain ourselves with the escalator music, accents and listening to a’capella music. I had never been to Angel Stadium before, but Wes had told me that it was beautiful - and he wasn’t lying! From the random waterfall thing near the big screens, the slight view of the freeway with the mountains in the background, the two huge red baseball caps that marked the entrance to Angel Stadium - I’m excited to come back in the future to watch a game!
Finally at 10:30, the commencement started and watched for literally 50 minutes as the graduates walked and sat in their seats. Can you believe there were over 7,000 graduates?! That’s intense! Berlyn and I kept admiring how the UCI videos made the uni seem so lively and united, they made us want to go to the school! The cinematography was amazing and represented UCI really well! The arts professor who introduced Chancellor Drake was hilarious (we were all waiting for Obama to show up after his helicopters landed). I absolutely adore Chancellor Drake because he’s a phenomenal speaker and whatnot.
Even though I go to UCSB, I know how big of a deal it was for UCI to have Obama speak at their graduation ceremony. Apparently, Obama’s personal secretary actually went to UCI, and UCI had sent over 10,000 postcards to the White House asking him to speak at the uni’s 50’s anniversary. How cute is that?! His speech was about climate change, and how it is up to our generation to be sustainable and conserve. He mentioned how we’ve come so far since UCI first opened up (with civil rights, with gay rights), but we still have a long way to go - with being sustainable, gun control and etc.
Although Berlyn and I had seats that were entirely too far from the UCI stage, we can officially say that we saw President Barack Obama speak.
After the ceremony ended at 1 pm, I waited in my car for far too long trying to exit the stadium parking lot. After about an hour of idling in a never-ending line and moving only inches, I decided that I was going to just drive around to a different area. Within 15 minutes, I was out of the parking lot and into… more traffic on the freeway. I was so drained of heat exhaustion, hungry from not eating lunch or breakfast and tired from the lack of sleep. Blasting AC and MisterWives in my car, I finally made it back to San Diego in 3 1/2 hours (it should have only taken an hour and a half, but stupid traffic.
So happy that I was able to make it out to PGRAD and the UCI Commencement!!! <3
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