A Yearbook Screws Me Over Yet Again:

Let me start by saying that I am no longer just "Karen Lee", I am "Karen Lee, B.A.Sc." Check it out, it rhymes and everything! Yes friends, today was the day I became a permanent fixture in the history of UW. The day started out normally enough, except that neither of my brothers seemed to have good pants that fit properly, and I was ready to go before any other member of my family. The drive down to the 'Loo was uneventful, and I got to the PAC in time to rent my gown ($25 for a shapeless black smock that I'm only going to use for three hours) and then to Engineering to get my yearbook, which, incidentally, is the size of a phone book and weighs three times as much. Finally, something that's actually worth the money we paid for it. (But unfortunately, it screws me over later on)

Now, the big challenge: getting 700 engineers to line up in numerical order. It worked out, more or less, but not without a hell of a lot of noise. While filing into the gym, the first thing I did was locate my family within ten seconds. I really had no idea where they were going to sit, and with every other person in the room waving at somebody, it was a miracle I found them at all. The big coincidence was that they seated themselves directly beside the row where I ended up sitting. Poor Sandy, who was sitting next to me, wasn't able to find her family until her little sister came up to us and handed her a bottle of water near the end of the ceremony. After everyone was conferred and people had finished their speeches and whatnot, we filed out into the blazing sunshine and attempted to find everyone we wanted to take photos with. The funniest thing is that everyone took multiple shots of everyone, and so all of us will have at least three copies of every photo.

I don't know how long it's going to take for me to fully realize that I have a degree.

We started heading for home after the crowd and the traffic thinned out. Here's where I made the mistake: I started looking at the photos in my yearbook. After a few pages I started to get a little dizzy so I put it away. We stopped for dinner at a restaurant in Mississauga, and it wasn't until we were seated in one of the noisiest places in the world (complete with wedding banquet), that my system decided to completely shut down. I lost almost all feeling in my hands and feet, and my head was spinning. When I was finally able to make my way to the bathroom, I lost all vision when I was halfway to the door. This was longer than the other head rushes I've had in the past; I literally could not see a thing for twenty to thirty seconds. I think I had grabbed onto somebody's chair before it went black, and I just stood there like an idiot in the middle of the restaurant. Someone asked me if I was okay, but by that time I was able to see partially, so I said I was all right. My mom came back for me and led me into the restroom. After spending a little time just standing in the almost totally silent bathroom, I felt way better. That was too easy. I spent the rest of the dinner just keeping myself together, drank an entire pot of tea by myself, ate maybe two bites, and was able to leave the restaurant with whatever dignity I had left. I made it home before I let myself go. Childhood memories of road trips to Scarborough came back to me at that point. So, through some basic repetitive experimentation, I was able to determine that I still should NOT be reading anything in the car. I guess old habits die hard.

"We've only just begun"