pomp and circumstance is exhausting

on many levels. emotional, logical, logistical, metaphysical levels, just to name a few.

a fabulously, wonderful friend graduated from UPenn today with her Master's degree and i am super proud of her. all superlatives absolutely necessary. she busted her ass to reach this accomplishment; working full time, taking classes full time, volunteering part time, now squeeze living in there somewhere with a pack of cigarettes.

now, i've been to a few graduation ceremonies in my time, run of the mill, average, 'we're proud of our kid' type of events. this was not one of those. this was of the louis vuitton variety; well branded and accessible to the upper echelon of soceity while coveted by the rest of us. the perception is of greater value than the reality. the only difference is that you can't get a degree from UPenn in a Made in China knock off version, at least not yet. grappling with this particular concept is often emotionally draining for me, today was no exception. please don't take this the wrong way, i'm proud of my friend and her accomplishment. it's the other people who were there, particularly the undergrads with the jimmy choe shoes and chanel handbags who were the detractors to the value of the degree. it was no longer a hallmark of academia, it's now the new luxury brand.

my emotional exhaustion fed into my logical exhaustion. it's been a comtemplative day and i had thought of a good paragraph to write here a few hours ago. until may sweeps and the seaon finale of bones. so insert your best emotional to logical transition paragraph here.

now, logistically i thought i had the day all planned out quite well. until i squandered that plan by not getting out of bed when i knew i should have, and ended up running 45 minutes late. turns out i wasn't the only one crippled by poor planning. the playground shared by the intellectuals and consumerists got their evite rsvp count off by about 200 and had failed to furnish enough chairs for the robed participants. it was that perfect storm demonstration of the smartest people in the room not being able to produce the desired results in a timely and efficient fashion. some called it chaos, others called it a time sink, i called it a good old fashion clusterfuck. as the clusterfuck on the field ensued, i got all 'what about me' in my head and i started to consider my own future.

metaphysically, it brought about my inevitable questioning of 'wtf am i doing with my life?'. my first career fits me, for now. it's starting to get that 'good idea on the hanger' quality to it. i've known since i was seven that i want to pursue graduate studies. it's just not commonplace for the silos of academia to accept an HR professional into a community and regional planning program where i can write a capstone based on transitioning low income neighborhoods into ecological and economical communities. time to enter into the career transition job at a non-profit that will take pity on my fill of working for the man (here comes the looming reminder that i love my current job and company - oh the quandry of wordiness i'm in).

now, if you're not tired from reading this, well then, i haven't accomplished my goal of sucking the life out of you like the day of commencement did to me.