Proceedings on my graduation day, as sent by e-mail to Carmen, a friend. Note how "wet behind the ears" I was then. Though everyone shared the graduation ceremony, the innocence is all mine.
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From: Chiau Woon Yeo[SMTP:yeochiau@pilot.msu.edu]
Sent: Saturday August 19, 1998 21:54
To: Carmen
Subject: Commencement
The day began with me taking Ee Lin, a friend from Malaysia, to an oriental mart near here. You know, she loves food, and the oriental mart is like heaven to her. All the time that she was here, she was either eating, talking or sleeping. Nothing else. :) Anyway, after buying almost one big box of stuffs, all of us, including the Yeohs, and some close friends, went for lunch at a Korean restaurant. This restaurant is pretty good.
After lunch, it was time! Came back, took a bath (not very common of me taking bath in the afternoon, or even more than once a day), dressed up and was ready to go! I wore my favorite tie, a Mickey Mouse tie which Foo gave to me on my 21st birthday, over a plain long-sleeved white shirt and navy blue slacks, over my Caterpillars! Yup, the same one I wore to Pangkor. :) Then, the green gown, green hat and orange tarsel. Most people look horrible in a green gown, but I made it all look good. Friends were green in envy. The orange tarsel is for engineering. Other schools have different colors.
So far so good, but the trip to the MSU Auditorium wasn't that smooth. My friend's car was running low on petrol and the nearby Mobil ran out of gas! We had to go further to get gas. Reaching there, I realized I forgot my honours cord! (No kidding man. Me graduate with honours?) We headed back to Spartan Village, and my friend took this opportunity to pick up a Malay girl he likes (he hasn't shown any platonic interest in her, but we are encouraging him).
Upon reaching the Auditorium, I was rushed to a side walkway where all soon-to-be grads convene. After about 10 minutes, we headed for the main hall, where the ubiquitous (for this ocassion) music began to play. You know, that instrumental academia number. All of us tried to look cool, but it wasn't easy with all the cameras snapping away and us momentarily blinded by all the flash lights. We were then seated according to our school, and the ceremony began.
The speeches. Boring as they were, Americans are very practical people. Unlike back home, where speeches can go for way too long, everyone here went about their business very quickly. In fact, the whole ceremoney took only 2 hours, with about 500 of us. Imagine how long this will take in Malaysia. After a couple of speeches, and some awards, one guy gave a joke about engineers. Here's a detour...
**** Joke about engineer *****
Word has it that during the French Revolution, lots of people were executed and among the first to be guilloutined were the Chief of Accounting, Chief of Marketing, and Chief of Engineering. The accounting guy went first.
With his head on the block, miraculously the blade stopped short at his neck! Divine intervention they say, and promptly released him.
Then came the marketing guy. By George! The same thing happened!
Third was the engineering guy. With his head on the block, the engineer looked up at the blade and then said, "Aha! I know where the problem is!"
That's the thing about engineers! They solve problems!
**** End of joke *****
Okay, back to the ceremony. It was our turn now. Every shool of students were introduced by school and all the students just responded by standing up, except the electrical engineering guys. We howled and screamed like a bunch of nitwits. Of course, the other schools copied our style, and we responded among ourselves, "been there, done that". This led the master of ceremoney to comment, "the most rowdy school of students go to the electrical engineering" and we responded with another round of howling. Then, we were asked to move our tarsels from right to left. Most of us did it by the finger while some very imaginative engineers tried by swinging their heads a couple of times until the tarsel fell into place.
Aha! Now names were called up to receive a symbolic scroll. The authentic one will be mailed to our homes probably a month later. When it was my turn, I tried to be cheeky and wrote something on my name card. You see, everyone was earlier given a name card so that the mc knows who comes after whom, and also how to correctly pronounce your name. I tried to be cheeky by adding "the first" after my name, and also "a.k.a. Luke Skywalker". I added the last one at the suggestion of my friend, Wayne. But the commentator wasn't that sporting. He was being professional. He hesitated a moment, pondered, then decided to read out only my full name and nothing more. Nope. No one can deny my moment of glory. Hee hee. I went to the stage and shouted with both my arms raised like a champion! Back home, this behaviour will be given a boot, but this is America and everyone just laughed. Fortunately, a friend caught this antic of mine on tape.
Well, after all 500+ of us were done with, we were given a standing ovation and then we sang together the alma mater
This was then followed by the very catchy MSU fight song. It's ironic that 2 Fridays ago, this song was sang by those 3000 rioters protesting over the ban of alcohol, and today, it's by more than a few thousands of us. Same song, different goal. Er... Being the Robert Plant of Malaysia, I can't bring myself to deliver this 2 songs the usual way, so I reverted to Yeo Chiau Woon mode, and just mumbled through.
So, everything's done? Not really! We went out and well-meaning friends were shutter-happy again. All's fine except my beloved FE2 wasn't with me. A friend took it to take pictures of me earlier, and he wasn't around. I posed with a lot of friends and great photos were being made. Those with me will be great photos, those without will be dull and boring. That's all. Can we go now?
Not yet! Reaching home, a couple of friends came over and all hell broke loose again. I had already removed my gown and my tie, and had to wear them again. Wow! A lot of great photos! (Meaning a lot of photos with me in them) There was one with me and Adelyn, me and Mrs Yeoh, and me and Yeoh. Never felt more like a family with them than this.
By now everything's done right? Yup! It was for me. It was my turn to be behind the camera and I snapped some shots of Siew Gin, a friend, in my gown, hat and honours cord. She borrowed another cord from Yeoh, so she was "graduating with Double Honours". We rested for a while and then headed for a barbecue party. "Ayam-cue" said Yeoh, as we had only chicken.
So, how does it feel like to be an engineer? Nothing! Matter of fact, I was flipping chickens behind the ambers most of the time. :)
Sincerely,
Yeo
Personal homepage: www.msu.edu/~yeochiau
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