Last night Cheryl and I attended her kid brother Shane's high school graduation ceremony. It was a pretty good ceremony overall. It's always a very inspirational event, trying to drum up the courage in the student body to continue to excel past school.

(It was the other way around for me -- I couldn't wait to be free of those chains so I could unleash myself on the world!)

It was a loooong ceremony though... three and a half hours. A bit too long, and too late at night too, because by the time it was over it was dark and there were no good photo ops on the lawns of the university like Cheryl and I had when we grad'd.

Most of the ceremony was watching each student go across the stage, slowly, while their personal message was read by one of two vice-principals behind the podiums at either end of the auditorium. Every once in a while there was a great message, something humourous or powerful, and that made it bearable. It was sad to hear one girl's message, something to the affect of "Thank you dad for believing in me, even though I know I disappointed you many times." Ouch. There were only a few duplicates. I was disappointed no-one's message was "this space intentionally left blank". Oh well. I'm sure Elliot was proud he got a teacher to say "Elliot is the greatest human being in the world!"

Just my luck, Cheryl was clapping as I was trying to get a picture of Shane in the middle of the stage with the principal and she bumped my arm, resulting in a fuzzy picture. I should have gone down to the front of the stage like other parents were doing to get a proper picture, or sat forward in my seat to avoid her enthusiasm. ;-) A once in a lifetime opportunity wasted. Sorry Shane.

After the ceremony we went to Raymond's (restaurant) for Chinese. A great night by any standard. :-)