Status Update: In the spirit of holding myself accountable I need to do this, although it is frankly horribly embarrassing. Jobs: 0, Gym: $40/visit, Alcohol: none. bad bad bad
I’m currently between graduations. Between jobs, between graduations, between meals, I seem to like resting in a state of in between. Anyway, my brother graduated this past weekend from college and my sister graduates this week from law school. What does this mean for me?? Lots of nice dinners, some boring speeches hopefully trickled with the occasionally inspiring one, and some more reflection. Because let’s be honest here, if there is anything my life has been lacking over the past year it has been self reflection.
There are two major components to a graduation: the gift and what’s next?
As someone who has spent the last 6 months out of work, I know better then to ask what’s next? Unless of course you know for sure this person has something lined up, it’s like asking a non-pregnant women when she’s due. Good try at polite small talk, epic fail, better luck next time.
Now on to the gift. A graduation gift is a tricky thing. It needs to be meaningful, memorable, appropriate and shouldn’t be too cheesy. The classic graduation gift is Dr. Seuss’ Oh, The Places You’ll Go which is uber cheesy (that’s right it’s so cheesy I had to bust out the French). But, considering my brother’s childhood affinity for Dr. Seuss it’s not a bad gift. Although I’m fairly certain since they have not come out with a Wii version of the book, it would just become another thing to move, thereby adding to the clutter (the opposite of a good gift.) So that one was nixed.
For the record, I love that I can think out my brother’s graduation gift out loud on this blog since there is a roughly a 0% chance that he’ll read it. Although there is a good chance his girlfriend will, crap, me and my big mouth. Do you know what would be cool? If you could do some kind of online scavenger hunt. You start here, I’ll write some riddle me this type clue which sends you to another site to find the clue. Have those been invented yet? Because if not I’m patenting them right now. I’m a total genius, what better way to get through the work day than an online scavenger hunt. (Btw, I’m fully aware it’s a good thing I think that I’m a genius, since that sentiment is not shared by many.) Ok my genius aside…
So back to the gift. So I do what anyone would do in search of an insanely personal specialty gift for a loved one, I checked the graduation gift guides posted throughout this wonderful world wide web of ours. Here’s what it found.
- Money – duh if I had any I would give some, next
- A palm pilot – not exactly sure when these lists were written, why don’t I give him a VCR while I’m at it
- An engraved clock – we’ll file this under clutter
- A nice pen – Again clutter, only easily losable clutter aka a total waste of money
The list continued on in this way. You mean the internet isn’t the best source for discovering a personal gift? I still maintain it is, the lists were just bad.
So in the end we decided on nice cuff links and a custom fit dress shirt from Proper Cloth so he’ll look real good in interviews and within no time will make dreading what’s next a thing of the past. Isn’t that what graduations are all about anyway? Inspiring the future, one graduate at a time….
I did read this… but I promise not to tell. 🙂
I think you chose a great gift for him.