Graduation

For those of my oh-so-faithful readers who have asked for some photos and for all other unexpected visitors I hereby present a few snapshots of the glorious days that already belong to the past:



Without a doubt, the last several days have been the most extraordinary days in my life. The honors, awards, and all the other events around it surpassed anything I could have imagined. It felt like a dream and feels that way even more now, when it's all behind me. I managed to feel proud, surprised, confused, elated, ridiculous, overwhelmed, scared, embarrassed, and happy so many times and so intertwiningly during and in between that it is difficult now to tell one emotion from another.
But it wouldn't be me if I didn't ask myself: where does it all lead? I guess after so many blissful moments it can get only worse. I have learnt that you cannot sustain a state of happiness and success for too long. This is not a natural way of life. Savor what you can and when you can, make the best out of it, hopefully stash some away for the future use and run! Does that sound reasonable? I don't know. Most probably not. Sometimes I feel that there is a disaster lurking behind every corner of my life just waiting to jump and consume me. Now, I did not mean to write anything like it in my "Graduation" post. Sorry - especially to you, C.
Celebrating graduation can certainly be fun - I've had my share of it. A trip to the beach, eating out, getting presents, spending more time than usual with people I love and ruining their schedules because of that... yes, that's definitely fun! I hope everybody agrees here with me.
I feel I have so much on my plate now that I don't know how will I ever manage to deal with it! I'm trying to build some healthy professional relationships that should make my graduate life easier and more productive but it seems that it is not free of certain risks that I have not learnt to negotiate yet. I'll just have to improvise and learn on the go, as I usually do. I'm going to meet many new people soon, some of them may have a big impact on my studies and future career. Good first impression will not be enough. I see a lot of hard work in front of me, long meetings, long and hopefully at least sometimes interesting conferences, a lot of studying and talking, and a lot of skillful maneuvering in order to get people to give me what I need - startegies for which that I have not developed yet. Not to mention that I haven't figured out yet what I need either... And all that is just an addition to my family and the responsibilities that go with it. God, give me energy, and a mean a lot of it!