I graduated last week! I can't even believe that I'm officially done with my Master's degree. If you've been reading for a while, you may remember that I defended my thesis last October. I was planning on graduating in the fall, but I didn't get my thesis edits done in time (the thesis office gave me a week to complete them when I had a million other things to do, but it ended up working out just fine). My final thesis edits were complete as of the beginning of last week, and my journal article (!) was accepted at the end of April. I get to check that research off and really dive into PhD research now, woohoo!

My parents were in town for the event, and I enjoyed spending time with everyone. :) The graduation was a new experience for me. Because my school is so big (over 8,000 people graduated!), they break it into two events: commencement and convocation. Commencement is the school-wide general event where you listen to speakers, and the honorary doctorates and other awards are given out. They acknowledge everyone by degree and college, but no one walks. Convocation is broken down into individual colleges and consists of some short speeches and the main event--the actual conferring of degrees. Commencement and convocation were on two different days, so I wore two different outfits. I decided to go with my navy sheath dress for commencement and added simple accessories. For convocation, I wore my new seersucker dress from Uniqlo. It showed up in the mail the day before, and because I had nothing else picked out, I went with it! I added a cardigan for extra warmth, and I'm glad I did because some storms rolled through and really cooled the air (if you couldn't tell by my arm hair standing on end, haha). I wore my Cole Haan pumps both days, and I have to say...they are AMAZING! My feet were sore from standing for what felt like forever, but I had no blisters whatsoever--even after being in them for hours! I also decided to decorate my cap, because why not?! It's too fun, plus it made it easier for friends and family to spot me in the crowd of black gowns and caps. ;)

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