First Adam now Susie. People are just graduating left and right.
It was interesting to see some of my old professors at Susie's graduation. In fact, one of the very first classes I ever had at Carnegie Mellon was taught be a grad student in the English department. Today, she got her PhD. When I went to congratulate her at the reception afterward, it turns out it was her very first class period. So that was a happy coincidence.
One thing that I re-learned today, no matter how incredible your writing is on paper, it is the rare author that can deliver their work with a cadence and charisma befitting the words. Hopefully that won't dampen the reading at Radio City. I don't know much about the public personas of Rowling and Irving. Obviously I've seen numerous interviews with King, but I can't say I've ever seen him actually read his own words. So, hopefully all will go well.
I've been a student of many things over the course of my lifetime...trivia, television, mechanics, reading, speaking, writing, accounting, marketing, business, management, aerodynamics, foreign languages, parenting, medical jargon, the internet, etc. One thing that I guess I took for granted in all of that was the knowledge of the people around me. When studying complex aerodynamics for various, um, enterprises, the people I was dealing with knew as much as or more than I did...or conversely, I was teaching them. And, for the most part every learning experience was like that. Except for writing. Either it never occurred to me that people didn't grasp the more obvious nuances within the language or I was just too egotistical to think about it. After listening to the same 6 student speeches and the few odd professor speeches at the diploma ceremony, I came to the realization of author vs. orator, but it wasn't until I was talking with Susie's mom and sister at the reception that it became clear that not everyone was "in on" the jokes. They were expressing relief that they wouldn't have to listen to the "English people tell jokes only other English people can understand." I thought that was a phenomenal assessment/observation that, like I said, never occurred to me.
Anyway, congratulations to both Susie and Adam. Both have worked extremely hard for the next level in their education and professional careers. And I'm not even going to hold it against Susie that the hockey game today was on concurrently with her diploma ceremony. Ain't I nice?