"I always forget we're a Catholic school until stuff like this."

Well, it's all over. Classes, papers, all that is over and done with. On Sunday afternoon, I became an official DePaul graduate. Political Science class of 2010. Whoa. My. God.

I can't really sum up how I feel as a graduate. To be honest, it doesn't even feel real. I feel like in about a week I should be heading back to 990 W. Fullerton to start classes again. In a sick way, part of me wishes I was, because Professor Marrar is teacing a class on the Iraq War this fall, and I would just love to take it. As I explained to my family at dinner, I will sincerely miss school. I loved my classes, loved my professors, and consider school my favorite part of my time in Chicago. It has played a huge part of my life for the past year and a half, so I'm not sure how I'll feel once it hits me that I'm really not going back.

The ceremony was nice. Not as bad as I thought. DePaul breaks it up into the seperate colleges (Communications, Business, etc.) and has multiple ceremonies throughout the weekend. Mine (Liberal Arts and Sciences) was the last one, and also the largest one. There were probably about 1000 kids participating, and that's not all the people who actually got degrees. The speakers were all good. Funny, honest, and even the Catholic references and prayers were enjoyable. The opening blessing was quite lovely. "...And God bless our Blackhawks." Even though DePaul is a Catholic school, it's Vincentian (St. Vincent de Paul is our patron) so it's way more about being socially responsible and helping those in need than being a good Catholic.

The whole family and Ben's parents came in for the ceremony and dinner, which was so awesome. I'm such a cheesepuff, but I love that everyone was together. It means so much to me! Afterwards, Ben and I packed up the last of my stuff in the apartment, then crashed out on an impromptu sleeping machine. All in all, it was a great great day and a great weekend! We even got to see Andy and Katie, who came up for the day on Saturday and stayed the night.