I didn’t realize until I watched SGN’s graduation episode (watch here if you haven’t seen it) that I was considered a 2020 Graduate. Yep! I officially completed my Masters Degree in Education! What?!?! This 2.5 year journey has come to an end. To be honest, I didn’t think anything of it. I was just glad to be done and have that Masters Degree under my belt. I was excited to get my diploma, but I had no plans of celebrating. But my friends had a different plan!
On May 16th, my friend invited me to go for brunch at one of our favorite cafes that is a 10 minute walk from my apartment. Of course I said yes! I mean good food and good company, also you gotta eat :). I did not expect anything! We walked to the cafe, talking about our latest book reads and the week back to school. As we approached the cafe, there was nothing out of the ordinary. We started walking up the stairs and I saw some of my other friends. I was so confused, this was a random group of my friends. Friends from various places: school, TeachBeyond, girl gang, church. These were my friends, but they didn’t really know each other. And they were all dressed up. I asked what they were doing there and they just smiled at me. No one would tell me what was going on. I WAS SO CONFUSED. What could they possibly be doing? I finally realized I was the only one that didn’t know what was going on. So I started racking my brain, my birthday was a month ago…. we already did the whole good-bye thing…. what else was there?
Everyone kept asking, do you know what is going on? And for the life of me I couldn’t think of why everyone was there. I didn’t know. Then I heard it. From the third floor, the musical notes of pomp and circumstance floated down and I realized, OH! This is for my graduation. I couldn’t believe it. All these amazing people came together to give me a surprise graduation! Here came the tears. As I walked up the stairs, I was awestruck, that my friends would do this for me. They had everything. They made banners for the commencement exercise and even made me a diploma (because the real one was sent to my parents’ house in America). The had an entire program that included a commencement address, a time of worship, scripture reading, a graduation video, presentation of flowers and diploma, and a valedictorian speech (I was valedictorian of my class of 1 here).
So much work went into this plan and I was overwhelmed with the amazing love of the family of friends God has given me here! I cried tears of joy at the showering of love. It was a great surprise. I am still amazed that they had been planning it for a couple of weeks and I had no idea! They did a great job! And I am so glad that I got to celebrate this major accomplishment. I didn’t realize how much it would mean to me!
