I didn't even give my parents the option. I just decided I wasn't going to the ceremony.

Creepy, huh?

I think you did this on purpose.

Also, I don't have a way to "search" for user numbers per se, just put the user number in and see what I get.

my parents skipped my Masters as my brothers was the same day. I didn't even walk, I opted to take pictures of my friends graduating from ungrad that same year.

reminds me though that I have a cousin graduating this spring. I don't remember what I wanted out of college. cash, right?

You soooooo totally should get presents, Jesse. Also, make your parents come. I mean, someone needs to stand in the audience holding the video camera, and that's what parents are for.

The only family I have that I might send graduation announcements to are in Georgia, which really isn't all that terribly far, and I'd feel bad with that sort of thing, since they keep asking me to visit, and I keep not going. So it seems mean to be all like, remember me? Yeah, I know, haven't seen me for a long time... I'm graduating! Please send your check or money order to this address. And yet I KNOW they wouldn't understand the implied money thing, and they would think it an invitation, and then I'd have the phone call about how they plan on never being on a plane again, because of 9/11, but they're very sad they're going to miss my graduation.

One of my favorite blogs, Language Log, takes a satirical swipe at the Kansas Board of Education's Scopes Trial II: Asshat Boogaloo": "Linguists boycott Kansas hearings on intelligent design of English" WARNING: Very, very dry.

Six years ago, when conservatives previously held a majority of seats on the Kansas board of education, they established guidelines encouraging schools to give equal time to the theory of linguistic creationism, which claims that English was created directly by God five hundred years ago at the start of the Great Vowel Shift so that the King James Bible could be translated into it.

However, 616 is the real evil deal, right?

And here I was thinking you were talking about the area code.

my parents skipped my Masters as my brothers was the same day

That's so unfair! How was this decision reached?

I think graduation announcements are key for the not-that-close (geographically and familially) people. They'd never actually come to the graduation, but you want to remind them to send you stuff.

There's that, and at some graduations (namely mine and my cousin's) You only get a few invites because someone famous is speaking. Mr. H was the only one who got to come to mine out of the 4 invites I was allotted.

I just got back from a smoke break- my second- which means it's the Arts & Leisure section that goes out with me. For a long time I've really liked the tv blurbs that go alongside the schedule. Today, I finally looked at who was writing them and realized why. They're written by David Bianculli. Today's was full of snarky references to last week's presidential preemption, and one on the Apprentice that referenced the AI/Paula Abdul thing.

Ooh, will I get presents for getting a master's?? I wonder if my parents will even come to graduation

I got presents from my parents. Well, present, really, but that present was a car, so I'm not complaining. They came to the ceremony, too. In fact, they insisted because I didn't walk for undergrad. At that point, my mom said it felt like I had been in college 7 years without ever graduating. She needed the ceremony for closure more than I did.

the decision was reached in that I had graduated undergrad the year before (which they attended with grandmothers in tow) and they hate NYC.