May 17th, 2026: Graduation day today. I woke up at 5:37am but didn’t get out of bed until 6:30am. My mom made us all an oatmeal buffet for breakfast so I just got blueberries, chocolate chips, and milk poured in mine. I had to fold my laundry and put it in my suitcase plus the dirty laundry from yesterday. I thought we were to be leaving by 8:00am today but we ended up leaving a bit later, like 8:45am. I had 2 cups of coffee and got all dressed in my yellow button-up that I never took. I got in the car with my parents, my sister, and my sister’s boyfriend then we rode all the way over and got there at 10:08am. I texted Magdalus beforehand asking if they needed a reader for today and he said I could do the first one. When I got in, we were all greeted by Jade, Gabriella, and Magdalus, we ended up sitting in the back right taking up 3 rows. 2 family friends of my mom’s ended up coming, whom I will be calling T Weasel and H Weasel. I’ve know them for a long time and they used to live in Texas before moving to Chicago. Also joining us was my godmother. My family except for me and maybe my godmother hadn’t been to mass in a long time. I was embarrassed at how much my family was speaking in the chapel, I think Lewis’ ex-girlfriend shared my ire at them. I went up to practice reading and spotted Nash, Sixes and his friend, Amethyst, Angela’s friend, Stearns, Stearns’ mom, Stearns’ dad, Stearns’ sister, Stearns’ fiancée, Reuben sitting with When we first sat down I went up to do the first reading Acts 1:1-11:
☛1 In the first book, O Theophilus, I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach,
☛2 until the day when he was taken up, after he had given commandment through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen.
☛3 To them he presented himself alive after his passion by many proofs, appearing to them during forty days, and speaking of the kingdom of God.
☛4 And while staying with them he charged them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which, he said, “you heard from me,
☛5 for John baptized with water, but before many days you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit.”
☛6 So when they had come together, they asked him, “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?”
☛7 He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has fixed by his own authority.
☛8 But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samarʹia and to the end of the earth.”
☛9 And when he had said this, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight.
☛10 And while they were gazing into heaven as he went, behold, two men stood by them in white robes,
☛11 and said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.”
And of course, the psalm that I was also roped into doing because some people were absent for the time being, Psalms 47:2-3, 6-9:
<R: God mounts his throne to shouts of joy: a blare of trumpets for the Lord
☛2 Clap your hands, all peoples! Shout to God with loud songs of joy!
☛3 For the LORD, the Most High, is terrible, a great king over all the earth.
<R
☛6 God has gone up with a shout, the LORD with the sound of a trumpet.
☛7 Sing praises to God, sing praises! Sing praises to our King, sing praises!
<R
☛8 For God is the king of all the earth; sing praises with a psalm!
☛9 God reigns over the nations; God sits on his holy throne.
I sat down for the second reading then rose for the gospel gospel. The priest’s homily was longer than expected, even mentioning that you’re supposed to go to church every day while looking at my whole family, he did mention the ordinations on Saturday including Luigi’s older brother and also Sixes’ friend’s older brother. Most of my mom’s side of the family received the Eucharist despite being in a state of moral sin (except me) while most of my dad’s side didn’t get up. I went outside after mass and then we got to meet the priest, with practically everyone in my family talking to him before taking the car to the brunch spot. We got in and seated at a very long table, I was handed some gifts and we had my sister’s friend be there, I got this ham with musdummy on it that I loved. T Weasel told us that his son got a degree in video game design in Burlington, Vermont and he now has a girlfriend, T Weasel also mentioned having at least two brothers in that conversation. My godmother gifted me a book which was a memoir by James Martin, SJ. Seriously, when I’m feeling irritated by people not taking the faith seriously. I went out for the grad photos with my family and I was already kind of irritated that I could be running late to graduation. My mom told me to knock it off. I took some more and then got in the car with my father, my sister, and her boyfriend before they drove me over. I opened up some more of my gifts which included the watch from a few months ago, an authentic Swiss Army knife, and some more money obviously. I got off and then into the stadium past the metal detectors. We had to fill out a form for name announcements and receiving pictures. I ended up sitting next to good Logan and far ahead of A10, the girl, and James the Greater, I was far more to the right than in front of Stearns. Rama was a bit ahead of me. At 2:24pm, Jared texted me:
<Take ur hat off and scratch ur head so we can spot you
I did that and he still didn’t find me. I went through reading the book and noticed some people like the Fujoshoid, the chemical engineer. I texted my family back and forth to find them but they were all the way near the top being impossible to see. I read through the book they gave us and I spotted none other than Asherah’s name in the graduation book and she’s graduating with honors. It just instilled a fear in me, although I think she was in the 9:00am ceremony versus me being in the 2:00pm ceremony. The ceremony started a bit later than usual and there was an announcement about James the Greater’s mom graduating at the same time that her son was. I am pretty sure I also saw James’ dad. The graduation ceremony was short for the PhD students, a bit longer for masters degree graduates. And then the bachelors before starting with my group. I got up and turned in my first slip, did the photo, handed in the name pronunciation slip to the guy, and then went up to be announced and received my degree holder being empty. As I sat down, I spotted A10 and the woman from our group project and waved to them. As we were finishing up, we flipped our tassels from the right of our cap to hanging off the left of them. As I was walking outside, I spotted the Rastafarian and his wife, I tried waving to them but they didn’t notice me. I got out and past all the people occupying the streets closed off, I took two pictures of the crowd and put them in the WhatsApp groupchat for them to find me with. As for the Instagram stories I posted, they were liked by Peach, my second cousin who lived with us in 2019, Titania, Jane, Adams’ friend, Lewis Markus’ brother, Jared, the chemical engineer, Programmer uncle’s wife, Upsilon, Rose, and Ava. I spotted them as they came over to me and took some more pictures before walking near the garage. Our aunt was missing and we tried to get her to come over to us but she had a hard time navigating. As we were waiting for my aunt, Stearns came over to me and congratulated me, he noticed that we both had an America 250th anniversary stole so he joked that the others must hate America. I laughed but my dad brought that up in conversation later. I said bye to them all except my nuclear family and then we drove back to my apartment, along the way, my sister discussed her graduation gift being a new car, she said:
“The avalon was good enough.”
And my mom discussed why we sold the Avalon to Jäger’s ex-wife, except they were never married and they broke up, my parents were critical of him not really being present in raising his daughters, pawning the responsibility off to a friend, so basically a worse babysitter. I got in and they helped me move stuff up and gave me extra money, amounting to a $2,000 check. My dad asked me what I’d do with it and I said invest in gold and silver, I lied that I invested the previous money in gold through RobinHood. My mom never remembered doing that, to which my dad disagreed. In total, I got $3,000 exactly. I said bye to my parents and then worked on writing in my diary and studying before getting ramen with an egg for dinner and going to sleep.
Song of the Day: Every Morning - Sugar Ray (1999)
