"Nena, your concert was boring."

They gave us our burial robes, ropes to put around our necks (for honor students only, of course), and sent us off to go shake hands with very old people as a "welcome-to-our-world" gesture.

I think that the reason they held us for so long back in the utility sector of Assembly Hall was to make us really want to get out of there. I mean, seriously: you get the graduates into a hot room and make them stand for 2 hours, oh yes. They'll do anything you want us to do just to make sure the ceremony gets over with.

So gradumacation. Kind of a blur. It's something that you're expected to remember for the rest of your life and you're trying to absorb as many memories as you can and yet it still ends up a blur. For example: during every single honor night you notice how different people get different amounts of applause, and I always wonder what I get. And yet every single time I always forget to listen for applause because I'm walking across the stage thinking, "Who are all these people I'm shaking hands with?" And the way they named the wrong person valedictorian, that was pretty epic as well.

I didn't have a party, but we had a small family gathering and the highlight, of course, was our epic game of charades.

At the end of it all, though, my 5 year old brother comes up to me and says, "Nena, your concert was boring." I guess it was boring. Can boring things be memorable?

--E.A.