A Doctor In The House

We spent last weekend in Washington, DC attending Michael's Ph.D. graduation ceremony. Technically, he has been Dr. Michael Barg for almost a year now, but he wasn't able to "walk" until the most recent ceremony. Mike's parents, Grandma Barg, sister Kelley, and niece Madelyn were there as well as my parents, Lara, Mia, and Luke. Aside from a little rain, it was a very nice weekend. The Hooding Ceremony, where he was individually recognized and received his hood, was in Lisner Auditorium on Friday. There were 200 plus doctoral students, so it was a fairly lengthy ceremony. The University Ceremony was held on Sunday morning on the National Mall right in front of the Capital Building. That was a bit shorter than expected, perhaps due to the rain, and not nearly as boring as it could have been. The keynote speaker was Julian Bond, chairman of the NAACP. His speech was (fairly) short and sweet. I had never heard of him before, but I liked what he had to say. I even came away with some of it: Instead of being the guy standing in the river catching the babies that come floating by, be the guy that goes running upstream to stop whoever is throwing the babies in the river to begin with. (I swear it made sense in context!) All in all, I'd say it was a worthwhile event. I don't know about Mike, but I feel like I have some closure on all those long nights and endless (and, to me, unintelligible) discussions. Michael, I am so incredibly proud of you. I always knew you would do it.