Wednesday (Columbia J School Graduation)

7 a.m. waking up in the morning

Gotta get dressed gotta blow my hair

Gotta have my Joe, gotta choose my clothes

Weather is grey and the wind is blowing

Raining on and on, check out the campus

Looks just like a hurricane

Gotta get to graduation soon

Where I'll see my classmates

Standing with the MA's

Freezing in the May rain

Gotta hold my tears back

Can't believe it's here....

It's Wednesday, Wednesday

J School Graduation Day

There were times I didn't think

I'd make it, make it

It's Wednesday, Friends Day

I'm so proud we made it

J School's just another name

For Journo Boot Camp

Yeah....riffing on "Friday" is kind of old by now but this just popped out of my head and onto the computer screen. I'm sitting in my nightgown blogging when I should be cleaning the apartment for our lunch party but had to mark this moment with a quickie post.

Today, I will join together with the class of 2011 of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in celebration of our momentous achievement: we have survived a magnificent and often grueling year of journalism education.

Today, we become Masters of Arts from Columbia.

It was a short, intense and sleep-deprived road.

A few thoughts before I begin doing what I wrote about in "Friday," that is, get dressed and get my butt to the sodden campus....

Columbia J School Class of 2011, I am so happy to be among you. What a collection of gifted journalists and fantastic people! I am leaving having expanded my social circle and my writing circle and so many of you will be lifelong friends. You have brought new perspectives from often faraway places and I am deeply grateful.

You have been my teachers.

To my professors: you have literally been my teachers! I leave Columbia J School with a new perspective and vast reservoir of knowledge. I have been both breathless with excitement and bored. There have been some struggles. In some classes I felt more nurtured than others. There were a few ideological clashes. There were lessons I resisted and others that will be with me for the rest of my life. I am forever changed.

A shout out to my professors:

David Hajdu

Dean Nicholas Lemann

Michael Schudson

Saskia Sassen

Sam Freedman

And my kind adviser, Fletcher Roberts. And the greatest deans of students in the world: Melanie Huff and Sree Sreenivasan. And Tali Woodward, thesis adviser. And everyone else in the school who gave this 50 year old grad student an encouraging "you go, girl."

Time to get ready.

It's raining diplomas, Halleluyah.