It’s hard for me to wrap my head around the fact that I am no longer an undergrad college student and that I am a college alumnus, but a few weeks ago that was all I could think about on the day that it was made official. My parents, grandmother, aunt, and cousin all came up for my graduation, with my bestie Valentina in attendance for the ceremony. After several days of spending time with them, I woke up early, put on my cap and gown over my graduation dress, walked down the street to my school’s auditorium to sit with my peers and waited for commencement to commence.
Our commencement speaker was Bill Lawrence, the creator of Scrubs, Ted Lasso, and Shrinking, and the great-great-great grandson of our loving founder Sarah Lawrence. This led to a pretty timely “nepo baby” joke at the beginning of his speech, followed by the most creative speech I’d ever heard.
He was an excellent commencement speaker because he didn’t really deliver a speech. He just started riffing off the notes he’d cobbled together, keeping the jokes coming the entire time, as he told us about the rules he gave to his writers in the writers room. I love how writing-centric the commencement speech was.
If the speech ever got too boring, we were instructed to shout out “Harrison,” and he would start telling a Harrison Ford story, since he was the star of his show Shrinking.
The first time someone shouted it he told the following story:
Bill Lawrence told Harrison Ford that he wanted Jason Seigel to star alongside him in Shrinking. Harrison wasn’t familiar so he asked him which movie of Siegel’s he should watch. Bill told him Forgetting Sarah Marshall (a few woos from the crowd). Harrison Ford watched Forgetting Sarah Marshall, which has some full frontal nudity from Siegel in it, to which Harrison Ford texted him, “Nice penis.”
Seigel then had that text message framed.
The second story was when they’re shooting a scene in which Ford has to shave his face in the morning. Ford told him that he had to do the scene shirtless, because he always shaves his face shirtless. When asked what he needed for the scene, he said, “I just need five minutes to do five pushups.”
Jokes aside, his speech was all about doing the job you have to do in order to do the job you want, not seeing other people as beneath you, and never forgetting your mentors. He supports the ongoing writer’s strike, made a joke about needing his “old man glasses” to read his speech, and kept on getting distracted by the people around him, including the president of the college. I had no other choice but to go home and binge watch Ted Lasso.
I walked across the stage and got my diploma, or more accurately, an empty black binder that will one day hold my diploma once it has been mailed to my parents’ house, a few pictures of myself, and a hug from one of my professors.
Speaking of never forgetting your mentors, I was able to speak to my writing professors afterwards and introduce them to my family, during which time I hoped that they would tell my parents what they’d always hoped to hear during parent-teacher night when I was a kid: that I was a pleasure to have in class. The graduation gave way to a reception with light hors d’oeuvre, emphasis on light, and some champagne, and before my family and Valentina set out for the day for my final romp around Bronxville. I was out with this group when I received the good news: I’d just been hired as a marketing intern at Macmillan Publishers for the summer.
Clearly, it was an eventful day in my life. One I won’t soon forget. Little did I know that I was gearing up for a summer with so many more to come.
The Tragic Queen,
Raquel
The Tragic Queen 