How Wacky Was It?

Just got (got) back (back) from Cali (Cali). Good times all around for my sister's commencement. Of course, unlike my own formal Ivy League steeped in 300+ years of history graduation weekend a few years back, Stanford does things a little differently. While my commencement fun was firmly contained (we were allowed funny hats on Saturday, but there was still a well-regimented march onto Old Campus), this is most assuredly not the California way. I am pro...

The Wacky Walk. Basically, at the appointed hour the school opens the stadium gates to the undergraduates, and they stream onto the field dressed as absurdly as possible, holding funny signs, enacting skits, and dancing around. Spotted: "I can haz job?" signs, several sets of billiard balls, a giant Godzilla, a brontosaurus, several caterpillars, Sumo wrestlers, a collection of fruit (including my sister, a green apple), and my personal favorite, a massive red arrow made of balloons which one student had tied to himself, pointing down, so that his parents would be able to find him amidst the mayhem (useful for pictures, too, no doubt).

I'm not saying I would trade in the grandeur of my four ceremonies in three days, but this seems to capture the Stanford spirit and Cali chill-ness pretty well. Nicely done.

However, the wackiness was not done justice by what followed. (You'll see how clever that sentence was in a moment.) I am anti...

Anthony Kennedy's boring, meandering, and somewhat meaningless commencement address. I was excited to learn one of our Associate Justices was the speaker, and was probably looking forward to this more than your average attendee. So it was a major blow when he got up there and gave a fifteen minute speech in a somewhat halting and not at all listener-friendly manner. It was pretty much bereft of a theme (or maybe it had several vague ones: "the law is really important," "read the Constitution," "protect freedom," "promote America's gen-err-ral prin-suh-pulls"). The only laugh he got was when he talked about how the major cultural influence driving foreign students toward the law is "Legally Blonde." Which is kind of frightening, but I guess not unexpected. Anyway, it was a big letdown.