Austin

The first part of my trip in May was heading back to Austin for my official graduation ceremony.  After having sat on the stage several times I was motivated to participate myself.  Plus you get the cool robes and it was an excuse to visit Austin and see people.  My mom came out with me for the trip.  Thanks to her we got to stay in the Driskill Hotel, a very nice historic hotel in downtown.  I had been to the bar and some banquet rooms before, but the hotel rooms were fun.  They were nice, of course, but decorated all Texan style.  The wallpaper in the bathroom was damask pattern, but up close it was a cowboy with a long lasso in front of an oil well.  Very fun.

Shortly after arriving in town on Friday I went to the astronomer's local hangout, the Crown and Anchor to catch up with people during happy hour.  It was fun to see people again and to catch up on the gossip.  The Crown was really dead, which made me sad, but I was told that it was because it was graduation weekend, and usually it was still its normal crowded self.  I didn't meet any new first-years, and most of the people there were the old folks that I know.  I hope that the social UT astronomers aren't a dying breed!

The astronomers crapped out on dinner, and my student governance friends thought things would be crowded on graduation weekend, so I ended up going to Trudy's with my mom and friend Eric (from UVA and TX).  Man it was nice to have a good margarita (Mexican martini) and good Mexican food.  Yum yum.  I wasn't even hungry after nachos, fries, and beer at the Crown, but I had to go for it.  Thus the vacation gluttony began.

Mom and I then hung out at the Driskill bar waiting for my friends to arrive downtown.  Even after they arrived we spent most of the time there, but we did hit up one of our old haunts on sixth street.  It was really weird because everyone we knew used to hang out there and now the crowd had totally changed and was kinda sketchy.  Oh well.

Saturday was the big graduation day.  At noon was the doctoral ceremony.  I got to see a ton of people from the graduate school that I knew, since they were all there working the event.  The ceremony was pretty much just as I remembered it.  I got to walk across the stage and get hooded, then shake the hand of the Graduate Dean and University President.  Or more accurately I got to hug them both (which made my mom very proud), and then stand there catching up with them.  I was like, uh, there are more people behind me, talk to you later guys!  It was indeed nice to actually have some meaning behind that part of the ceremony, rather than just being one of the herd.

After a reception and a late lunch at Stubbs (mmm, barbeque) we headed back for the big school-wide evening ceremony.  Texas sure does know how to throw a party.  PhD students get to sit right in front, so we had a great view for everything.  When they confer the degrees they call each college in turn (UT has 17 colleges), and grad students get to go last.  They do masters first and then make a big deal about how awesome the PhD students are and how they have achieved the highest accomplishment possible.  It made me feel very special, and puts the PhD in context with normal people, as opposed to all my overachiever friends.  The speaker was Marcia Gay Harden, who I sadly didn't really know.  But she gave a really entertaining speech, showing that actors really can entertain better than average people.  Then there was the big fireworks show.  Hook'em Horns!

Here is the whole thing in time-lapse video.  The doctoral students file in on the right toward the beginning in the dark orange robes.  The actual ceremony is up next to the Tower, though this video was shot from where my mom was sitting.  They had video screens up all over the place.




After that I went back to the hotel to get rid of the incredibly hot and sweaty robe.  Oh yeah, Texas is hot!  I loved loved it for most of the trip, but that heavy robe was just too much.  When I walked through the bar at the hotel to get to the elevator people called out to me and congratulated me.  They even recognized the doctoral gown and called me doctor.  It was funny.  After changing my mom and I went out with my friends, and she even stayed out when the bars closed down at 2am and we went to our usual post-drinking hang out for greasy food.  Yum yum again!

Saturday we went to breakfast at Polvos (yum more mexican food) then bummed around Austin during the day.  I actually went to the Austin Art Museum for the first time.  I was a bit underwhelmed, but there was an interesting exhibit by Chris Jordan (Running the Numbers).  I'm not usually into social messages in art, but the execution of the pieces was really amazing (click on the images).

Then we got to go out on the lake for a special boat party in my honor.  Thanks Tom!  My mom actually wasn't too enthused about it until we got there.  Then she was like, whoa, this is a big lake!  Uh, yeah.  And it's really pretty too.  We had a great time swimming (in slightly chilly water, there's a reason that there usually aren't boat parties in May!) and enjoying Tomaritas.  A great end to a very fun-filled weekend.