Observation/Reflection: So I Graduated!

There were so many great pictures of me, that I decided to choose the worst.

You guys...

on April 30, 2015, I actually GRADUATED HIGH SCHOOL! I mean, technically, I still had all my finals left, but that's just a minor and insignificant detail, because what even depends on those? I mean, apart from our future...

Graduation invites

So graduation in Hungary is a little different from graduation everywhere else in the world, and by that, I don't just mean the absence of caps & gowns. Want to know how it all went down? Continue reading, guys!

Exhausted juniors get up at five in the morning to arrive at school before we do, and decorate the building with flowers they secretly chopped off their neighbors' well-kept lilac bushes or even potentially off their own very lilac bushes, as lilacs are the flowers traditionally used for graduation. This is not too much of a fun activity, believe me. Last year, we forgot to bring scissors and therefore were cutting flowers with a razor blade. By the end we were so exhausted, that we were just tackily sticking flower stems on the walls with Sellotape. Yep. This year, based on what I saw, something similar must have happened, but I didn't really care because the amazing scent of flowers and the general look of the school left me quite touched.

My class and our beautifully decorated classroom.

So many flowers. And you guys, those bows actually had our names on them!

Us seniors only had to arrive at half past nine, as we had one last class with our tutor in our actually beautifully decorated classroom. She adorably started crying midst her speech (!!), which also made me cry of course, so there went all my make-up. She also gave each of us a little goodbye present, we took a couple of group photos, and after that our parents arrived to give us our flowers. It was also then that we received our "tarisznya-s", which are little fabric bags with our year of graduation on it. Traditionally, tarisznya-s contain a biscuit, a small bag of salt, a coin ( a 2 Ft coin in our case, which is not even used anymore) and a card with the name of every graduating senior on it.

Erm...this is the card. I guess you can imagine what biscuits and salt look like. The 2 Ft coin? It looks like this.

My class, 13. C <3

Oh, and our top secret tableau - the one I needed my senior portrait for - was also displayed in our classroom. And if you didn't know already, it's based off "Lunch atop a Skyscraper", and it was my idea, because who else is obsessed with New York and old photography? And if you didn't know what tableaux (tableaus? It's French...) are for, well they're hung up in the halls once a class has graduated.

Here it is! Our tableau!
(Though in the end they decided to choose the B&W version, because certain people believe they look better on that one. Delusional.)

Aaaand...you can also see my disastrous senior portrait finally. Sorry about the reflections, I don't have a digital copy yet.

Once all the parents were ~~herded out of the building~~ kindly asked to leave, we started the part of graduation, from which the whole thing actually got its name (graduation in Hungarian is "ballagás", literally translated to "ambling"): strolling through the school. With our bouquets in our left hands, and our right hands on the shoulder of the person in front of us, we started walking down the halls. I guess we were also supposed to sing graduation songs, but a CD took care of that. As we made our way out into the schoolyard, we went into a couple of classrooms, the cafeteria (where we got free pizza sticks!!!) and the gym (where we had to walk down the balance beam).

Leaving our classroom

Slowly walking down the hall, faster than a cannonball...

The gym.

More walking.

And even more walking.

Finally leaving the school building.

After taking our seats in the schoolyard, the ceremony begun. Erm...I'll admit I didn't really pay attention, but there was some off-key singing done by the choir, someone read a poem, and about half of the graduating seniors got books for one reason or another, with me being one of them as I got the BEST AWARD OF ALL AWARDS. You guys, for the second time in a row, I got the Student of the Year award, which is, like, better than being valedictorian. It basically makes you the coolest person in the school, because it's a school-wide award (so I'm not just the best out of graduating seniors). I already got this award last year and I didn't know I could get it twice, but that just makes it even cooler. I mean...people didn't really care that much, the guy who got a book for playing guitar in the school band got louder applause (probably because I was screaming his name, though...) but I don't care. ~~It also means that my good friend and greatest enemy Adam can only be the second in the competition. Ha! Because it was always the two of us competing against each other. But now it's over. I won! Ha!~~

Also NOTE: never take me 100% seriously guys, I'm not trying to show off, and if you knew me as well as I know my self, you'd also know that I really didn't deserve this award. ~~And that Adam would have.~~ (BTW, my prize was a certificate and book on art in the middle ages. Last year it was a book on art in Tuscany. I see a pattern.)

The flagpole, on which the graduating classes tie a ribbon. Ours was not too pretty. It was made in the cemetery, out of ribbon usually meant for wreaths. Just FYI.

Getting my award.

Showing off my superior intelligence

The other super cool thing that happened was that I gave a speech! Again! Except that unlike last time, I didn't mess it up! And people actually loved it! Even though I wrote it the night before! Yep. And even though I mentioned the fact that back in junior year, we tried to determine how strictly our German teacher would be grading us that day by what color shirt she was wearing! And our German teacher also happens to be our vice-principal! And she didn't even disapprove!

The only negative happening was that my balloon burst while cheering for my friend Erik, so I couldn't let it go...and I know that I saved some poor birds with that, but it still broke my heart a tiny bit because...because what if that's the universe trying to communicate something?? What is the world is telling me not to soar? Not to fly away to America? Not to inadvertently poison pigeons?

Let it gooooo, let it goooooooooo

Off they go! (except mine)

In all seriousness, though, my graduation from high school was a bittersweet, once-in-a-lifetime, heartbreaking but amazing day in my life, and I am so thankful for everyone who came & supported me and brought me flowers, and I'm even more thankful for my entire class and all my teachers for these awesome five years. I couldn't have been more wrong back in 2010, when I thought I would hate this place. I loved it, and I always will.

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