I Can Has Caffeine?

Hello, friends.  After a whopping 9.5 hours total of sleep over the past two nights, updating this blog is all that I can do to stay awake.  It is on days like these that I wish I had developed a coffee dependency in college, but, sadly for me, I can't stand the stuff.  So I must soldier on and get through this day with a foggy, heavy head and no caffeine.  The causes for the late nights have been the following: a Nats game on Tuesday that we got home from at about 11 due to our Metro train being off-loaded...grrrrrrr.  Last night, the Pens and Bruins played Game 3 of the Eastern Conference Championships, and the game went to double-OT.  I wouldn't have been able to forgive myself if I had missed the end, so I stayed up, with a quick 20-minute cat nap in between the first and second OT periods, that Dan assures me that I was out like a light for.  Well, our Pens lost, and we didn't get to sleep until about 12:30.  WOMPPPPPPP.

Anyway, I promised to talk about a plethora of things, so let's see if I can remember back to the last time that I posted:

Tim's Georgetown graduation was the weekend before Memorial Day weekend, and, being that family members on both sides had other commitments, it was mostly our little foursome, aside from a brief cameo by my uncle Ed.  On Friday night, we had a nice dinner together and then went to Senior Ball, which, after going my senior year and falling in love with it, I practically forced Tim to attend {in the end, though, I think he realized that essentially EVERYONE was there}.  I never turn down an opportunity to bust out the long, formal gown that I bought for my Senior Ball, and it was nice to see family friends and Tim's roommates, along with their families.

Tim and some of his roommates at Senior Ball

Family at Senior Ball

On Saturday, we all grabbed brunch at Metro 29 {we don't need a fancy brunch haha} and then putzed around before Tim's graduation ceremony.  The Business School had a 6:00 p.m. graduation, and the weather looked more and more threatening as the day went on.  They made the call at 4 that graduation would be out on the lawn, and, as we walked outside to snag some seats, we found that it was raining.  Bummah.  We still had two hours to kill and were likely to get soaked, and, more importantly, I felt awful for the graduates, who, I imagined, would not have umbrellas with them.  Luckily, it only sprinkled a little bit as we waited, and the rain held off during the ceremony.  Alleluia!  I was so proud of my baby brother as he walked across the stage and was incorrectly hooded by a professor who was probably 8 inches shorter than him.  The perils of being tall!  But anyway, I am so proud of everything he has accomplished, and I have no doubt that he will continue to do great things.

After taking the requisite pictures, we grabbed dinner, and, just like that, with absolutely no fuss, graduation weekend was over.  While I loved having so many family members at my graduation, there is definitely something to be said for having an intimate group.  It was such a special weekend, though, given that now 3 out of the 4 of us in our little family have gone to Georgetown.  It is a tradition that I have been so honored to share with my dad, Tim, and other family members who have gone here.

So proud of our graduate!

Totally posed

Filing in

The Lake siblings, all grown up!

In my next post, I will bring you up to speed on our move {!!!!!!!!}, which, as you will remember, had me all riled up and nervous.

Graduation

Wow.  Graduation season is upon us again.  HOW DID THIS HAPPEN???????  It really does seem like just yesterday that my friends and I were reveling in Senior Week and preparing to walk across that stage, but alas, that was actually two years ago.  Sigh.

This graduation season has proven to be a particularly controversial one on the Hilltop this year.  I mean, in general, the University seems to have been in the news a lot this year, but when an uncharacteristically decent lineup of commencement speakers (really, they are usually terrible at Georgetown) was announced earlier on this month, people went bananas. 

Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services and one of the main authors of Obamacare, particularly the portions of it that pertain to contraception, was selected as the commencement speaker for the Public Policy Institute.  Immediately, a maelstorm erupted surrounding the decision, with Catholic archbishops calling on President DeGioia to rescind the offer.

You know what I am most proud of?  The fact that my alma mater (and employer) is a place where people of differing opinions can flourish.  People come to Georgetown to become more worldly and to be exposed to differing opinions, all while receiving a world-class education, not to be around people who think exactly what they think, not to mention what the Catholic Church thinks.  I have said it before and I will say it again; I am a practicing Catholic, but I think that there are many areas in which the Church is out of touch with reality.  Georgetown may be on the Vatican's shitlist, but at least it is a place where civil discourse and free expression are encouraged. The fact that Secretary Sebelius was invited to speak here does not mean that Georgetown is abandoning its Catholic identity. It is not a prerequisite that the commencement speakers' opinions be the most popular or shared by the greatest number of people.  I truly admire Georgetown's decision to extend the offer to Secretary Sebelius, and I hope that people do not make fools of themselves at the ceremony.

This year's MSB ceremony will be a bittersweet one for me, because this was the class that started their student careers just as I began working here, so it will be very emotional for sure.  I'm going to miss all of them!!! Let's see if I can make it through this year's graduation without sobbing.  It's doubtful, because the Alma Mater gets me every time.  Congratulations to the Class of 2012, and may Georgetown live forever!