Say “Hello!” to Master Tammie! :) Yep it’s true, I really am FINALLY done with my Master’s degree. For those of you who don’t know, my degree is a Masters of Science in Computer Systems with an emphasis in Web Development. I’m so glad to be done and very excited to see where life goes from here! I remember feeling the same way when I graduated from Central. I felt then and now like the world is my oyster, I just have to decide what I want to do with my degree! :)
Graduation was actually pretty cool. 
To be honest, I really didn’t have high hopes for the actual content of graduation. They usually tend to consist of rather dry, boring, feel-good stuff that makes up the usual speeches. However for this graduation, James Donaldson gave the commencement address. He was EXCELLENT! In his talk, he spoke of Esther (from the Bible), and how she had people tell her that The Time is Now. God had been preparing her for something great (in her case sparing the Jewish people). Just as she was being prepared, we a
re being prepared for life, and we need to recognize that for us, as we graduate, The Time is Now! Oh, and I should mention that Mr. Donaldson played professional Basketball in the NBA for over 20 years! The last year he played he was 42! ML, think you’ll be playing that long? Also, he was 7′2″. I actually shook his hand on the way out of graduation. Man he was tall!
There were several hundred people that graduated (I’m not sure of the actual number). Students came as far as Beijing and Hawaii to walk at Graduation. That was pretty cool. A lot of Hawaiian people were sitting right behind Chris and I.
Chris Ramos was the ONLY person that I graduated with that I actually knew. :) I think he knew a few other people. We ended up walking together and sitting together. He had a pretty awesome lei that his wife made for him of $5 bills. I must add that both Chris and I graduated with Presidential Honors. That means that we had above a 3.9. I think we were both around a 3.92. (Did I mention that I got 4.0’s in both of my classes last quarter?) :)
After graduation we raced home and threw a BBQ party at our house. My parents, sister, and Tobin’s parents who had come to graduation showed up at the party along with Stephen & Heather, Dusty & Kristen (and Dakota!), Terry & Christina (and some of her sisters), Grandpa, and Lynette (my cousin). (Lynette also graduated this weekend from Western with a degree in Communications). The party was a blast. There was a lot of food, talk and badminton! :) I also got some pretty sweet graduation gifts and cards. That was fun. :) Oh, I also networked my Vista machine to Tobin’s XBox and streamed pictures from graduation and a little playlist of songs we’d created earlier, during the party. That was a big hit. If you’ve got an XBox 360 and haven’t yet networked it to your computer, you’re really missing out! :)
So I’m done… This master’s degree has eaten up most of my spare time for the past 2 1/2 years, so I’m really glad that I’m through with it. :) I’m really glad I did it as I feel it has prepared me well for whatever will come next in life. One of the things I want to do with this degree is to really pursue some consulting work on the side (I do work full time for Biblesoft). So if you’re looking for web development, graphic design or photography, get in contact with me! :)
When the party was over, we didn’t quit. We ended up going down to Stephen and Heather’s at around 9:30 where we watched a movie, “Shooter”. It was OK. We ended up getting home at around 1:30 in the morning… :) Good thing church doesn’t start ’till 11!
I’ve included a few more pics from Saturday below. But be sure to click through and look at all the photos!
Congrats!!
Thank you! :)
Congrats on the degree! It was nice to meet you at AEA.
Thanks Rob! I just added you as a contact on Flickr. Great pics. I should have gone up front like you did… But I wasn’t really in a very good position to do so. Oh and I must say, you have a beautiful site! I’ll add it to my feeds. :)