When June 9^th was over, I was a different man.

Let’s start at the beginning:

I woke up and packed my room for a bit, before meeting up with some friends on the first floor of Gaming House to get into our robes and figure out where were needed to go. Greta was awesome and steamed all of our gowns so that they weren’t wrinkly. Graduation day!

We made our way over to the sidewalk along the side of the chapel and lined up; it was a bit cloudy and threatened to rain, but held for the entire day. A very enthusiastic photographer pulled us all out of order to get a group shot. I can’t imagine the picture was very good – he was holding the camera very shakily, at the top of a ladder in cloudy light. We re-lined up and surprisingly on time, walked across the blocked-off street, to thunderous applause.

The professors had lined up along the sides, and behind them stood all of the families and friends. Greta’s family – including Gigi and Jim – drove down for the ceremony. It was an excellent graduation – the speaker was firm, liberal, and funny. At one point, talking about how we need to save the liberal arts, mentioned that English majors had 8 points less of unemployment than Computer Science majors. Fortunately, I have both!

We stood, turned our tassels, and walked across the stage. I had asked for them to put me as Erik “Erty” Seidel, but they called me Erik. Ah well. They probably thought I was trying to prank them or something.

After the ceremony I wandered around shaking hands and thanking professors. I want to send Prof. Gregg a thank-you basket for being so great to me and personally tutoring me in Theory of Computation so that I could graduate.

Took a picture with the Math department, and made sure to find the English department shake hands with Profs. Spurgin and Bond. I found Julian over there and spent some time chatting with him and his family, waiting in line to shake hands with Prof. McGlynn, my creative writing professor.

Found my way back to Gaming House eventually, and stood out front for at least half an hour taking various pictures.

Cleaned and packed for a few hours. Julian had mentioned a few months ago that having to leave right after graduation seemed somewhat rushed – Lawrence required us to be off campus the same afternoon as graduation. It’s a policy that makes sense, but we decided to live by “you don’t have to go home but you can’t stay here” and rent out the English Room at Stone Cellar Brewpub in Appleton, and hold an after-graduation party for seniors.

My family and I almost arrived late, since we were packing right up until when we had to leave. The party went very well – good friends, good food. Then this:

(Click here to watch the video if it doesn’t embed properly.)

I’m very proud to say that I’m now engaged to Greta Dohl. I love her, and although we’ll be apart for a while, I’m glad to have made that commitment before I left. I think the video speaks for itself, so I won’t say much on the topic. We hung out at the party for a few more hours to chat and take pictures.

She and I spent a while lounging on the side of the pool and talking about the future, then went to bed.

From New York City,

Erty Seidel