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Another trip to New York City! This one was especially good as the main purpose of our trip was to see our daughter, Amanda, receive her MFA in Theatre from Columbia University.

Graduation comes in two acts: the first act being commencement for the entire University (over 11,500 were receiving degrees at this time) and the second which was for the School of the Arts (this was more like 125 students). Needless to say, if even 75% of the graduates and one or two guests for each show up, we're talking about a rather large crowd gathered in one place.



It's inevitable that a school that has been around for more than 200 years has a few traditions connected with it. One that we found particularly amusing (and that helped get us through the rather long processional of students getting their degrees) was items that the various schools carried in to identify themselves. The dental school, for example, carried a six foot tall blue toothbrush.

Most amazing, though, was the cell traffic in the quad as people filled the seats. From what we could see, at any given time about 20% of the graduates were on the phone (and if they weren't on the phone they were taking pictures). What we witnessed over and over was students calling friends and/or family to inform them where they could be seen. The conversations went along the lines of "I'm over on the right waving the sign for the School of the Arts!"

Another tradition that just didn't translate well into photos was that when each School was asked to stand to be presented for degrees, the students would throw or wave something related to their studies. So, the School Journalism threw shredded newspaper; Law, miniature gavels; Engineering, paper airplanes; etc. Those that didn't actually throw things often carried them, such as International Studies which waved the flags of many nations.

The best comment came when President Bollinger uttered the phrase "...which of you is the smartest" and one student responded "I am" - without skipping a beat, Bollinger replied "that remains to be seen."

Have you ever had a week than began with two Mondays? I think we all have at one time or another. This was mine - it seemed that every printer in the office failed at the same time and that we would never get to the fun part of working at the registry which is talking with the couples who register with us and their guests. With rare exceptions, they are a lot of fun albeit a bit frantic as planning a wedding is a mammoth undertaking.

Couples who use our registry make up some mighty clever items. One in particular photo shopped nearly every item in their registry. We featured one of them in the December 2004 newsletter.

One of my all time favorite honeymoon registry registries was this couple who went on a trip to the UK. Both the couple and their guests were terrific to talk with!

We keep finding ourselves mentioned in the news. Here's the latest on TheBigDay Travel!