What Will You Do?

My daughter graduated from UC San Diego last month. Even people she has just met now feel free to ask her, "So, what are you going to do with your life?" They feel free to challenge her ability to pay the rent, be happy, or actually accomplish what she's planning. (Although few actually do so directly.) She is gracious about it, in no small part because she has a plan and it's already in motion.

And this got me thinking. I have even less time left than her, presumably. This question should have even greater urgency for me.

So, I wonder why we don't ask this question instead of, "So, what do you do?" of people who have become old like me.

Please don't feel offended if you see me in the next week or two and I ask you, "So, what will you do now?"

Bring Back Vaudeville - but just for graduation

My eldest is about to reach a huge milestone: she's completing her bachelor's degree next month. She's debating about whether to attend the graduation ceremony. There should be no debate, but I share her ambivalence. The modern graduation is a poor excuse for a ritual, but it ought to be as fresh and interesting as the graduates themselves.

The education department could use facebook, class rosters, shared dorm floors, personal requests, and random assignments to create graduation groups of, say 40, a number that would allow more than simply hearing one’s name read over the PA. In preparation for this graduation ceremony, each graduate should be made to learn one magic trick or card trick and then, as they perform the trick, they can tell a story about a class, a classmate, mating in class or even something they've learned or how they've changed as a result of their brush with higher education. Each graduate would essentially perform a little vaudevillian routine.

This would not only make the ceremony so much more memorable and enjoyable for us parents and friends, but it would actually give these students skills too often overlooked as helpful in the effort to win friends and influence people. Plus, it would be so much more dignified than just tying balloon animals and telling jokes.

My Degree Has Been Recalled (or, the perils of blogging)

As I read the letter, icy fear gripped me. My hands were cold and clammy by the time I was done. It was from my alma mater. And I quote.

We are issuing a recall notice for your degree.

You may know that in this economic downturn, it is becoming increasingly difficult to attract students able to pay tuition. For this and other reasons, we are making a concerted effort to improve our image. We are appealing to graduates for donations, focusing our research money on projects we think are more likely to bring prestige to the institution and we are instituting a quality control program.

We have read your blog. We find it appalling that you would make the claims you do after having sat through classes at our august institution. We can only conclude that you either cheated your way through, have been hit with early onset dementia, or have been kidnapped by one or more irrational ideological
groups and brainwashed. In any case, we do not recognize your thought processes as at all related to the fine work of the professors who taught you.

You need to send back your diploma. Either that or stop expressing your opinions in public. We cannot afford to be associated with you.

If you would still like to boast of a degree from our college, you can contact our admissions office to schedule remedial education sessions. A cursory glance at your writings suggests that for you the sessions would probably require a commitment of 2 to 3 years.

You have until June 15 to return your diploma. At that time we plan to award it to a more deserving young mind, one we would be proud to have represent us. Please do not force us to resort to more public forums as we de-confer you degree.

Thank you for your understanding. We look forward to settling this peaceably.

I was afraid this would happen. Even worse? It is from the community college I attended.

In the Aftermath of Father's Day

My friend Glen sent me the transcript of his son's commencement speech. (His son is Jeff Lee, pointed to in the blogs listed on the side and found here, just graduated from UC Davis.) I found his speech unsurprisingly amusing and well done, but will just excerpt this:

It took me my first year of college to figure out that I wasn't going to pursue the line of study I originally thought I would. When I first announced that I would major in English, not life sciences, my disappointed and well-intentioned father sent me an e-mail which consisted solely of a link to a CNN article titled, "Most lucrative college degrees." It prominently featured a table of starting salaries according to major, and - as expected - "Liberal Arts majors" were listed dead last.

Understanding that my father, an Asian dentist, would want his son, not surprisingly also Asian, to receive a degree that would lead to a medical profession, I had no choice but to ignore my family's helpful input on my life decisions.

This is the catch-22 of parenting, what it means to be a father or mother. If parents do their job right, they'll give their child autonomy. And, of course, it would not be autonomy if the child could not - did not - choose to do things with his or her life that the parent would rather they did not.

Happy Father's Day Glen.

I Know Where the Nazis Went

Today, my son graduated from high school. With six to seven hundred kids in his class, the ceremony was remarkable for three reasons: 50 minutes of speeches that sounded suspiciously like "blah, blah, blah," 25 minutes to read names, and the presence of teachers who patrolled the area as if they were at a prison camp and not a high school graduation.

Lined on either side of these neat and orderly and darling young adults were teachers - about four per side and various ones walking down the middle, patrolling. This in addition to police and private security. The odd message seemed to be, you may be ready to be pronounced adults but we still can't trust you.

In his program, there were these simple instructions: please refrain from applause and other distracting behavior.

After years of forcing these kids to take standardized tests, banning innocuous fashion statements (technically, hats and t-shirts with messages are against school rules), and blatantly ignoring the fact that these are individuals struggling to emerge, this declaration that acknowledgement of a significant milestone ought to be done with the discretion of a Japanese tea ceremony. Sad.

Apparently, not all of the Nazis fled to Argentina. Some apparently made it into school administration.

Listening to the blah blah speeches, my wife asked me, what would your valedictorian speech be? My response? "2.5? None of you could have done better than a 2.5 GPA? What were you smoking?"

Blake rather amazingly checked the boxes without completely buying into the whole game. He seems to have done a better job of playing the game while knowing it was game than I did. I was never quite able to buy into the game in high school, although I did rather enjoy it by the time I got into college and even more so by graduate school. Sure, it's all games, all made up. But some games are simply more fun to play. The tough thing is remembering that it's just a game and then remembering that you're supposed to take it seriously. I can usually do one of those but rarely both.

Here's hoping that Blake finds a game that both draws him in and creates something of value.

Oh. I nearly forgot. Congratulations Blake!