'Sup Doc?
It’s official. I’m married to a Doctor. Last night Stacy had her Doctoral Hooding ceremony, thus ending one of the most intense and sometimes traumatic educational experiences in Western society. It was an emotional night for me because I was so proud of everything she has done to get to this point. Any doctor will tell you that at some point they wanted to quit medical school. It’s absolutely ridiculous. You work like crazy, get treated like crap and are expected to function at a level somewhere near perfection. Add to the equation the fact that everyone in med school is used to being the best at everything they do, and it’s a tough deal.
One of the things that I admire most about my wife is that her focus is rarely ever on herself. When she started planning her graduation party, she had a vision that it would be really cool to invite all of our neighbors and turn it into an awesome block party. Treat the neighborhood lavishly and just love on everyone. It ended up being so tight. Even though it was a drop-in open house type deal, most of them stayed for almost two hours. We got to talk and hang out and eat and kick it.
So this hooding thing. It was my first one ever, so I have to admit I might not know exactly how these things are supposed to go down. One thing I would have to guess, however, is that you want to have enough hoods available for each person to get one. Just a guess.
Well, that didn’t happen last night. The ceremony was going along swimmingly until they got about half way through the graduates. Then, all of the sudden, this person with a last name that starts with “M” or “N” gets up there and they don’t have a hood for them. In fact, they have exactly zero more hoods. I’m not sure who was in charge of that part of the night, but somehow they overlooked this one very critical aspect of the ceremony. I can see coming up one or two short. But 70 or 80 short? That’s pretty amazing.
Everybody starts looking at each other. The crowd gets restless.
Finally the lady who is calling out names just says, “At this point we will recognize the rest of the degree recipients.” No joke. They were just going to have the rest of the people walk across the stage. Talk about Janky with a capital “J”.
It was at this point that the newly-christened doctors demonstrated that they are not only uber-smart, but deep down they are also human decent beings that care about others. Unprovoked, those who had already received their hoods began handing them back to the grads that weren’t going to get one. At first it was one or two people, but within a minute, everyone was doing it. The crowd starts going nuts and gives the grads a standing ovation. Sans the part where they called out “Dr. Stacy Leila Dashiell”, it was the most chilling graduation moment I have ever witnessed.
In the end they never found the extra hoods. Some people left with hoods. Some people didn’t. You know what, though? At the end of the night, I don’t think anyone really cared.
Fair Dinkum
One of the things that I admire most about my wife is that her focus is rarely ever on herself. When she started planning her graduation party, she had a vision that it would be really cool to invite all of our neighbors and turn it into an awesome block party. Treat the neighborhood lavishly and just love on everyone. It ended up being so tight. Even though it was a drop-in open house type deal, most of them stayed for almost two hours. We got to talk and hang out and eat and kick it.
So this hooding thing. It was my first one ever, so I have to admit I might not know exactly how these things are supposed to go down. One thing I would have to guess, however, is that you want to have enough hoods available for each person to get one. Just a guess.
Well, that didn’t happen last night. The ceremony was going along swimmingly until they got about half way through the graduates. Then, all of the sudden, this person with a last name that starts with “M” or “N” gets up there and they don’t have a hood for them. In fact, they have exactly zero more hoods. I’m not sure who was in charge of that part of the night, but somehow they overlooked this one very critical aspect of the ceremony. I can see coming up one or two short. But 70 or 80 short? That’s pretty amazing.
Everybody starts looking at each other. The crowd gets restless.
Finally the lady who is calling out names just says, “At this point we will recognize the rest of the degree recipients.” No joke. They were just going to have the rest of the people walk across the stage. Talk about Janky with a capital “J”.
It was at this point that the newly-christened doctors demonstrated that they are not only uber-smart, but deep down they are also human decent beings that care about others. Unprovoked, those who had already received their hoods began handing them back to the grads that weren’t going to get one. At first it was one or two people, but within a minute, everyone was doing it. The crowd starts going nuts and gives the grads a standing ovation. Sans the part where they called out “Dr. Stacy Leila Dashiell”, it was the most chilling graduation moment I have ever witnessed.
In the end they never found the extra hoods. Some people left with hoods. Some people didn’t. You know what, though? At the end of the night, I don’t think anyone really cared.
Fair Dinkum