Hellooo my teacher’s pets! Such a beautiful, bittersweet time this is. Beautiful, weather and nature-wise, but a bit melancholy as so many June occasions are not being celebrated. Aidan and Jamie, for example, were to be married next week. If some virus had not mutated six months ago, we would be greeting our friends and family from all over, getting ready to celebrate the first marriage of the next generation. Instead, we will toast them over Zoom.

 

Meanwhile, Ronan graduated from the University of Toronto, with a virtual convocation ceremony on Tuesday. No cap and gown, no pomp and circumstance. Well, maybe a little pomp: the class of 2020 was addressed by a 91 year old Nobel laureate who warned them of the dangers of nuclear war. Climate change and disease as well, but since he is a physicist, he focused on nuclear war. Those poor kids. What a world we are handing them.

 

Ronan will get his celebration at some point, but in the mean time, we could not be prouder of him. He graduated with High Distinction, like REALLY high, with a 3.94 grade point average. That, and his degree in English and Linguistics, should guarantee him a shining career as a barista, if Starbucks was even hiring. That being said, he has loftier ambitions, and plans to go to law school in 2021, much to the dismay of our lawyer friends, who think he should be a songwriter. Lawyers, at least the ones I know, pretend to hate themselves and what they do, but Ronan is undeterred. He wants to change the world, and believes that a law degree will put him on the path to do so. In the mean time, he’s just another student looking for work in the summer of 2020.

 

There he is! There he is!

 

When Aidan graduated from Western back in 2015, he went to South America for 3 months, then did construction work at the cottage before finally coming back to the city to face his future. When I finished university (the first time), with a degree in Film Studies, I got a job selling clothes at J.Michael’s at Square One in Mississauga, and hated every single moment of the 4 months it lasted. When John finished U of T, he got a real job right away, but he’s a civil engineer and they are always in demand. We also got married that year. Looking back, I realize we were such babies, in such a big rush to be grownups. That period in your twenties right after school can be so daunting, when you have to decide what to do, where to do it, and whom to do it with. I think I eventually got it right, but imagine having to make those decisions in the midst of a pandemic, climate change, race riots, economic collapse, and, let us not forget, the threat of nuclear war.

 

Congratulations to the Class of 2020. Good luck to all of you, and sorry about the mess.

 

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