How I drove a truck from Annandale, NY to St. Louis, MO after never having driven anything alone before – and other before-during-and-after-graduation moving adventures

I have finally gotten down to writing about my USA-adventures this summer. The summer is almost over, and the things being described here are way behind now, maybe more behind than they should considering that they didn’t happen so long ago after all.

May 15th 2011: My mom arrived from Romania, an hour or so later than the scheduled time, because of rain that kept the plane in the air before it was cleared for landing. I got to New York with Bob and Elena in the morning: Bob was helping Elena move in into her new home and I tagged along. He also offered to collect my mom from the airport (JFK) and return us all home at Bard safely (thank you again!). This happened around 10 pm, and my roommate had already left the house, so my mommy and I slept in two different twin beds (she slept in mine and I slept in Cathy’s).

The next few days before graduation were spent with me showing my mom around Bard (I showed her RKC and my Senior Project poster, the Language Lab on the outside, Leon’s house, again, on the outside) and Red Hook (mainly the outsides of Key Bank, two churches and Hannaford, where my roommate and her dad were nice enough to take us) as well as attending the Baccalaureate ceremony in the Chapel, the Senior Dinner (without mom), as well as an Awards dinner at Fisher Center (which wasn’t that great since I sat at the same table with some awfully boring, smug and rich relatives of a Bard kid and the Bard kid herself) and the Senior Concert, also at Fisher (here, Bard graduating seniors who are generally not Conservatory majors get their chance to be the stars, maybe for the first and last times in their lives, of a solo concert, where they are accompanied by the American Symphony orchestra directed by Leon Botstein; they also did a group piece, which I thought was wonderful!). Oh, also, my bed wasn’t that small after all, since both my mom and I slept in it quite well.

I really liked the Baccalaureate Ceremony, although I know many people that didn’t attend the “religious” ceremony. There were some kids’ reactions I didn’t like, but all in all the people that attended were mature enough to show a traditional ceremony the respect it deserved. Also, since this is (was?) Bard, the religious ceremony wasn’t as religious as I expected it to be, or maybe it was more religious, just less Protestant (I hope I got it right, I never knew exactly what religion Bard was affiliated with, and I don’t really have internet access as I am writing this). There were singing and dancing performances, some speeches (one, belonging to a professor, I really enjoyed), as well as reading from the Quran!!! So no, it wasn’t Protestant, but very Bard-like, which I loved! After the ceremony we all received red carnations, which was a very nice gesture that I really enjoyed. I tried to get the video of the ceremony, but wasn’t able to, yet.

Senior Dinner I sat at the same table with Bob, Georgi and Elena (and another kid stayed with us). Botstein had a speech, as well as the class representatives and some other people, and, although I wasn’t paying attention I think some people received prizes there (?). I actually liked the senior class representatives’ speech, although it could have been shorter. Also, sorry, but I’ll never miss Kline food. Elena and I also took pictures with Botstein (next step, pictures with Obama lol). It rained (actually, it poured) during and at the end of Senior dinner, but Bob took us all home, safely. Afterwards, I went with Georgi to Elena’s.

(to be continued)