Swing Life Away

Hey, I started watching Big Love because Caroline told me that, like, half the cast of Veronica Mars was on it. And, you know what? She was right. It is a pretty good show so far, though I’m still finding it hard not to be all “Mac, stop being a mormon!” and “Beaver, stop talking about boners!”

I also have pictures for you today. These are, in fact, the last set of pictures from King’s College, completing a series that began four years ago with this series of photos. And geez have we all come a long way or what? I am very proud of all of us. We went from the vulgar and distasteful practice of crotch shots to become oh so very distinguished and intrepid. And far less blurry.

The following document my favourite Mike’s birthday party, some grad stuff and I even included some stills from the grad video. Well, from the beginning of the grad video. I was planning on capturing a lot more but watching the thing is just unbearably boring. Seriously, I’m not sure how we all sat still for that speech on Global Warming: it’s unbearable. It’s the kind of boring that makes me want to believe in spontaneous human combustion.

But these pictures are not boring at all! So click! And view!

The Highlights

• Like I said last week, our graduation was held in a church. A very pretty and old church. I’d bet it has some sort of historical significance. But, as I sat there, trying not to think about bursting into flames, I decided that this was a very inefficient church. There was a lot of wasted space. Look at how high that ceiling is! You could fit like another three storeys in there no problem. People could live up there or something. The best part about this is, watching the grad video, I can clearly pick out when I was thinking about the space, because I keep looking at the ceiling with a big scowl on my face.
• But that’s all very irrelevant! Because here come the graduates! Except you can’t see them because there are so many goddamned parents with cameras! Look at them! I know exactly how Princess Di felt!
• Some parents, when their kid was about to accept their degree, rushed right up to the stage and snapped a close-up pic. My dad, on the other hand, just sort of hung back and hoped for the best. This, apparently, was the best. I’ll always remember graduation day as the day my eyeballs imploded and became tiny glittering stars.
• And then it was over. I’m not sure what I was trying to indicate in this picture, except smugness. It was a very smug moment for me. Sort of a “I didn’t go to class for all of March and I still got a gold tube!” thing. There’s more of that to come.
• See: Smug. But then things got sweet. Look at us, being friends. Look at me, all left out, not having a sister.
• Later, we went out with our parents to the Five Fisherman where, in what was my last week in Halifax, I found out I like seafood. It was like a cruel joke. And, also, we are all very tired in this picture.
• These pictures are hideously out of order! But I like this one because the newspaper caption for it would be, like, “From left to right, David Elliott, looking surprised, Matt Elliott and Kristine Kozicki, happy, and Nicole Kozicki (sort of lurking).”
• And suddenly we’re back in time at Mike’s birthday! This happened several weeks before graduation. Or maybe just a week before. I don’t remember. But we barbecued!. Don’t tell our landlord!
• The lighting in these pictures is really bad, giving everything a sinister, cheap porn kind of vibe, not that I’d know anything about cheap porn. There are still some gems in the set, however, like this one, illustrating the long-standing moral that nobody wants their picture taken when eating a hot dog. It’s like, seriously, they’re eating a hot dog, leave them the fuck alone.
• This one, however, is the gem of gems.
• Danielle is magic, and nowhere was her magic more evident than on Mike’s birthday. She put together a ridiculous bowling and barbecue and dodgeball extravaganza that began with balloons and ended with trivial pursuit and white russians. She puts other girlfriends to shame, having raised the bar so high.
• I say all of that, by the way, to discourage any conclusions you might develop from this sad picture. And also this one, where Mike looks like he is about to cry.
• Here, I practice my graduation shrug. It is by far my best move.
• And then we go back to Grad, with some video stills! Here is the procession! Here is me looking smug (again!) and Katie looking unfortunately short! Short people got the raw deal in the procession, as indicated by the small part of Caroline’s head visible in this picture!
• More walking! Here’s Kristine looking like a deer! That’s a compliment! Here’s Erin looking pixelated! That’s also a compliment! And here’s a taciturn Bryan, who quickly turns happy, much to Rory’s chagrin!
• Lastly, I’ll close with The Graduation Shrug, which I talked about in detail here. I really didn’t plan on actually doing it, nor did I think I actually had done it, until Rory pointed it out to me after the ceremony. But there it is, on video: I take the degree, pause for a moment, and shrug. I’ll be such a terrible role model for my children.

And that’s it: here’s all I have. And now I keep getting e-mails from spammers telling me about the time they got a new TV that was so awesome it was like some sort of wonderful dream, so I’ll sign off from this message quickly without any sanctimonious sappiness. I’ll just say this: there will be more pictures, from Halifax and other places, of the same people, doing the same things. This isn’t really over; it’s just changing.

I hope you liked my pictures.

Matt