I AM THE MASTER.

 

Okay so not quite yet, I still have a few weeks left of summer classes, but for all intents and purposes, I am a master. It was formal graduation today for the MELPs and the JDs and the LLMs, with the whole tam and gown and hood shebang. We all started off at campus, took the class photo, then lined up behind a bagpiper in full kilt (a former Masters student), several flags, the law school mace (a big scepter with a swan on top) and the gonfalon (school banner). Law school graduation is quite a medieval affair. Lots of symbols and lots of ceremony. But since lawyering is one of the oldest professions, I suppose the graduation has had some time to define itself. Frances Beinecke, president of the NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council, a popular plaintiff when studying environmental law) was the commencement speaker. You have to give it up for her because (a) she is a woman president of a major organization, and (b) she is not a lawyer. You don't have to be a lawyer to be someone, something I wish they would tell the JD students a bit more often. Since us MELPs have a separate little informal graduation party later in July, most of us did not walk at this graduation. There were only five of us that did. I wanted to though, since I didn't walk at my college or real high school graduation, and I always wanted to get one of those funky cultish hoods ceremoniously placed upon my neck from behind.

 One of the huge benefits of going to a small school is the fact that after graduation, the school can feed everyone who attends and everyone in the community afterwards. There was a delightful array of champagne, sparkling cider, local flatbread pizza, local cheese, local ice cream, local cookies, local vegetables, local sushi, local noodles, local potato salad, local breads...everything is local up here. There is only one thing Vermonters love more than Subarus, and that is Vermont itself. Everything is local, and likely delicious.

Graduate graduations are always fun because the professors wear their robes from their various schools. We had two professors in hot pink robes, a few in vintage VLS robes, someone with a robe that looked remarkably like Snow White, complete with a fur-lined hood and a hat worthy of the Kentucky Derby, and one in a lovely shade of turquoise. We were quite the rainbow processional walking across town on our way to the village green this morning.

Like I said, I still have a few weeks left of summer classes, which I am looking forward to. The Vermont Law School summer session is quite famous, and the classes are rumored to be magnificent. The faculty is made up of professionals from all over the country and the world, and the classes are two-week intensives, which I tend to be better at than a lengthy semester. I am still waiting for a few grades, including Administrative Law, but it does look as though this graduation will not have been in vain.

Jake also took me to see X-Men and eat at Boloco for dinner tonight to celebrate. Today was a good day.

The trees on campus were blooming today, which also contributed to its altogether loveliness.