Well, I graduated this weekend. it's not "official" because my math class isn't quite done, but the ceremonies were all happening.

On friday night we had the cap and gown ceremony, where we all wear blue dresses and square grad hats that are super uncomfortable but look pretty funny and cool. Anyway, we waited around for a long time in alphabetical order "backstage" until we were filed out into chairs in the middle of the arena. After some really horribly phony and dull speeches (aside from our principal's), we all got called up on stage one by one to receive our certificates and scholarships.

aaaaaanyway, I ended up getting a bursary (for $1000 holy ######) and a little print of our whole grad class and stuff. It was pretty awesome.

Here's a pic of our little group of friends (without hats, sorry). I'm the short one.

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After the cap and gown, we all went home and blahdee blahdee blah. The next day, Saturday, I started the day early (for me) at 9:30, and we all went to Gabe's house to get our suits on and get ready and stuff. We had 4 events scheduled for the day, starting with the grand march. Basically we got all prettied up and then stood around in a tiny hallway for two hours until we were yet again filed out into the arena. However, this time, we walked in weaving lines for 45 minutes showing off our beautifulness.

Getting suited up.

Having my head partially obscured by a person.

Next came the cavalcade, which was almost immediately after the dance at the end. For those who don't know, it's basically an awesome parade of grads in cars and stuff.

Here's the truck I was in (I had no idea what type of vehicle it was until I got there), with my grad date who's cut out of the pic.

After this we went back to Gabe;s house. His parents were throwing a party for us, and inviting all the families over and stuff. it was a great time, with laughs and cheers and yeah. It was good. And I feasted on pop and cookies.

Anyway the party went until 7:30, then we all tidied up our suits and left again for the third appointment: prom. I got a ride in a limo with the same group who were in the truck with me, and it was great. We went in, got our LVR bucks, and started gambling and dancing and bidding and a bunch of fun stuff. At first I was like "this is gonna' be a looong night", but then the live band started playing, who were fantastic and played exclusively 80s pop hits, and everything just kept getting better. There was no alcohol, but we were all pretty drunk just on excitement. We won a crapload of money gambling (the fake money BTW) and we all pooled it to try and win some auction items. The one we wanted though, a $500 trip pack, but we were outbid by an old friend of mine by $3000 (we bid $7000). So we ended up getting these pretty cool leaf plates for Gabe's mom as a thank you for the party.

We have leaf plates.

After that, we went home, got changed into street clothes, and then headed up to the after party. It was in a field, with a huuuuge sound system that was cycling pretty fairly between all different types of music. I drank a bit, two beers (which were both awful) and some vodka mixed with Sunny D which was yum. I eventually got drunk and poked my friends noses or something, and tried to deal with drunken Zach, until I sobered up around 3:30am and helped Jason with his delirious and later unconscious grad date. Around 4:30 the sun started coming up, and we were all beginning to get bored; the music was getting worse and worse and the people were getting more retarded with every minute. eventually Gabe's dad came for us at 5:45 and took us back home, and the "day" ended.

Me and Drew dancing down to the car before afterparty.

Being retarded in the car.

And now I'll leave you with one last group photo:

Fake cool is what we are.

And that was my grad.