Springtime For Something: Commencement In The Time Of COVID

Yesterday, I watched a virtual commencement ceremony. It lasted about 15 minutes and didn't feature individual tributes to the graduating seniors. To each their own, I suppose. My own virtual commencement as a Class of 2020 Ram is scheduled for this coming Saturday, May 16th, and I finished finals yesterday (and classes the week before). Fordham's Commencement will, we are assured, feature an individual tribute to each graduating senior; hence, I sent in a photo, a quote, and a recording of how to pronounce my name correctly. It will be odd, I suppose, but, in a way, everything in this world is rather odd. I'm looking forward to it; I think it will (in its own way) be cool.

Fordham's Rose Hill campus in the Bronx (my home campus) has a lot of trees (sometimes it's like an extension of the nearby New York Botanical Gardens), and springtime on campus regularly features the blooming of its beautiful magnolias. I haven't seen those magnolias in person, actually, since the spring of 2018, since I spent the spring of 2019 in Argentina (where it was fall), and coronavirus caused campus evacuation before they bloomed this spring. The photo above was taken last week of a tree next to my brother's apartment in Newton, MA. I'm not an expert on trees, and I don't know what kind that one is. It reminds me of spring at Fordham, though, and that makes me think of how odd and interesting my virtual senior week (this week) will doubtless turn out to be.

It felt very odd to be at Fordham's Commencement ceremony in 2017, when I was a freshman. (I was there because I was singing with the choir.) Now, in 2020, as a senior, I won't be there until its yet-to-be-determined date, and that also feels odd. C'est la vie, I guess. It's very interesting. And I'm glad spring is here.