Frock Fridays: Graduation

My last graduation was sometime in late 2009 - or was it pushed to May 2010?  Honestly, I'm not sure.  After I turned in my dissertation on August 23, I more or less checked out of graduate school.  I know I passed (with very good marks, as they say in England) and I know I was granted my MA, but I wasn't really bothered with all the pomp and circumstance of the actual graduation.

Obviously, that was in total contrast to my graduation from college, when we enjoyed every cliché in the book: we carried apples to symbolize Columbia's Core curriculum,  one friend showed up naked under her gown, we took long-arm selfies with point-and-shoots during the speeches, and we threw our caps in the air and danced under the falling confetti.

Before that, though, in 2004, there was the first and most iconic graduation.  I cried when I heard the first strains of Elgar on the organ (I dare you to listen here* starting at 2:15 and not tear up yourself with memories) and processed up the nave of Washington National Cathedral with 76 other girls clad in white polyester.  After the ceremony, we gathered outside with cigars and celebrated our independence.  High school graduation is a heady thing; it's a whirlwind when, as Vitamin C says, "we're movin' on and we can't slow down."  (I was actually finishing 8th grade when that song was released, but, 13 years later, I still remember every single word.  Don't you?  Of course you do, dear readers.)

I got an email from my high school about the 2013 graduation ceremonies earlier this week, and it made me terribly nostalgic.  I'll try to find some photos of my high school graduation when I go to my parents' house tonight, but, in the meantime, I've tried to recreate the outfit I wore under my gown - our dresses had to be very light as the synthetic material of the graduation gown was practically see-through and we were required to wear white shoes.  I can't remember where my dress was from but I would have loved to wear this Reiss frock, and I will admit that these Stuart Weitzman flats are a bit classier than the Steve Madden sandals I chose back then.  However, I did live in pearl studs and my silver Elsa Peretti Jewish star from Tiffany, a Bat Mitzvah present from five years earlier, and I was totally loyal to Clinique.  (I think I owned this exact eyeshadow set in 2004 and I've replaced my Black Honey lipstick faithfully every time it's worn out since I first discovered it in 2003!)  We all loved the guy selling Kate Spade knockoffs on Prospect St in Georgetown - the bag below is the real deal, but Kate Spade wasn't the brand it is now back when I was in high school.  But then who of us hasn't changed since then?

*That really is the organ at my cathedral and I sang under the organist both in Washington and later, when I was in college, in New York!  It was such a treat to find that clip online.

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