Graduation!

In my last semester of school, I decided that I wanted to take an accounting course. Of course, I couldn't take it at the U of C, so I had to do a correspondence course from Athabasca University. I finished it and applied to graduate with my economics degree.

Benjammin was also set to graduate this April and was really excited to go to his convocation, so I booked a day off work to come. I decided that it wasn't worth taking two days off work for convocation, so I figured I'd have my diploma mailed to me.

Last week, I was in a team meeting and once we had gone over our various projects, my boss reviewed the upcoming time off, reminding the team that I was going to be off the following day for my convocation (somehow he had thought that I meant I was taking the day off for my own graduation ceremony). I piped up to tell him it was actually Benjamin's convocation and decided to add a funny story - I got an email about one week before convocation, telling me that I was one credit short of graduation and would not be able to receive my degree the following week. Really, University of Calgary? You tell me this one week before I had planned to receive my degree? Couldn't have pointed this out to me a month ago or something so I could remedy the situation? I mean, I did apply to graduate back in November.

After telling this story, my coworker Joe said in pseudo-disbelief, "WHAT? You didn't graduate? You don't have a degree?" Ha-ha, Joe. This was followed by my boss raising his eyes to heaven and wondering aloud, "What else in the interview was a lie? Oh great!"

I then spent the rest of the day being teased about being a college dropout.

Benjamin, however, graduated and received his Bachelor of Commerce degree on Friday. It was

great to see him in his gown and walk across the stage, even if the rest of the three-hour convocation was kind of boring. Congratulations, Benjamin! I'll catch up to you when they award the degrees in November. Although I think sitting through one covocation per year is probably enough.