The Finite

I signed on to be an emcee for the Class of 2014 PharmD graduation banquet.

The Emcee subcommittee is in charge of hosting the banquet and introducing all of the speakers. Also, we were to write the “banter” that fills the space between speakers. I was on this four-person group because during the first conference call, no one else was volunteering and I had an “Aw, f*&k it” moment, and a couple of other reasons. (I’ll explain later.)

I mean, I do like speaking in front of an audience, don’t I? And what is this awards show-esque banter if not a cooperative, live-action tweet? And writing the script? I’ve always wanted to write a script. I think I’d be good at it. Of course, it would be a collaborative effort. But self-deprecatingly subverting the pomp and self-aggrandizement of an otherwise solemn ceremony? This is my time to shine. (And this is the place to do it. The banquet is us poking fun at ourselves anyway.)

Alex took charge and was functionally the director of the show, coordinating all the committees and the technical aspects arranged by Mrs. Neary. The script writing occurred in the week or so leading up to the big day. A barebones script was spiced up with some selfies (one of which was mine), sports references (not by me), a musical number (surprisingly not by me), and one bit of racial humor (mine) that ended up being thrown out. (Alex was originally supposed to introduce the four of us and refer to me as “Brian Tran” the other Tran in our class, to which I would respond with feigned indignation.)

In an ingenious idea by Rushabh, the whole event was accompanied by a live aggregated Twitter/Instagram feed displayed on the projection screens for people posting with the appropriate event hashtag, ‘#PUPharmDBanquet2014’.

Thus, non-Purdue readers back in Illinois may have noticed the selfie shot I tweeted on Friday. To be completely honest, we faked the selfie and hoped no one would notice during the show. We “pre-selfied” and I tweeted it ahead of time but it was delayed from appearing on the projection screens by the tech crew until the exact moment when we needed to emphasize the impropriety of my social media egotism during the introductory remarks as William addressed and welcomed the 400+ guests to the big night.

The slideshow that came next played as we dined. It had picture of all the about-to-graduate pharmacists along with their future plans. (Mine simply said, “Planning to marry a doctor”. Not quite as good as Bocek’s proclaimed upcoming initiation into the Avengers as a PGY1 resident)

I was actually a little nervous when time came to carry out transitions for the Dean at the podium with Nate. It didn’t help that I had a rather recalcitrant cowlick (but I was told it “gave me character” somehow) or that I was food coma-ing so hard. Damn that slow-roasted pork tenderloin! I left instructions with my tablemates sat with to tell the server to leave the coffee pot if he were to pass by while I was up presenting. (He did and, with the help of dessert dressings, I had the most mocha-d up coffee ever).

Anyway, back up on stage, we took a selfie with the dean (a la Ellen at the Oscars) gave some class awards out for academic achievement, And introduced the class graduation video, in which we shall live forever.

And then it came time for the student awards. We had nominated candidates and voted for them ourselves, just the students. The proposed categories were named after famous Purdue alumni: Amelia Earhart, Orville Reddenbacher, Jim Gaffigan, etc. The Amelia Earhart award was named for the classmate who was “missing in action” from lecture the most. The Orville Reddenbacher recipient would go on to change the world. Or was that the Neil Armstrong one? In any case, I obviously won neither of those.

Brian Lamb graduated from Purdue, became a communications magnate and went on to found C-SPAN. So the award committee announced the Brian Lamb award would go to the person with the best social media presence. I guess those hours of editing gifs to tweet instead of studying finally paid off. This blog’s popularity (unbeknownst to me) during freshman year probably helped. (Thanks again, guys.)

Towards the end, Nate proposed we emcees take a few moments to “get sentimental” and say a few words of personal gratitude. I actually had a long passage prepared. But I went last and once I saw how short the others were, I truncated it to only the first and last sentence.

Here it is in its entirety.

I don’t know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve.

I wasn’t a professional when I first came here. *pause* I was a seething, mustached cynic. But you changed that. All of you. You showed me what professionalism could be, should be. I witnessed something greater than myself. And got inspiration for myself to strive to be something greater.

And if I could do it all over, I wish I could have met more of you. And worked with you, and laughed with you. And I only hope that in the uncertain future before us, I may have the chance to do just that. Thank you. Thank you for teaching me so much these last four, pivotal, unforgettable years. Thank you for making a professional out of me.

Of all the people I spoke with at the local tavern afterwards, only two understood the Tolkien reference. (Something for which I showed my gratitude with sloppy, inebriated hugs.)

I then stumbled back to Jim’s apartment, crawled under his kitchen table and fell asleep using a six-pack of Newcastle as a pillow.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 7th, 2014 at 11:39 am and is filed under Day-to-Day. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.