Graduation!

This past Friday {5-6-11} I graduated from medical school! Woo hoo!!!Actually, since I have been done with rotations for almost a month now, graduation seemed rather anticlimactic, but it was great to see a lot of my classmates I haven't seen for a while.

Prior to heading to the cities, Ryan took some pictures of me pre-graduation gown.

Then I started to feel weird when people were driving by, so Ryan started pretending to be a big time photographer and went a little nuts with the pictures. {I may or may not have gone nuts with some of the poses - ha!}

Then I drove to Minneapolis and met up with my classmates prior to taking a class photo

Abby, Katie, Kelsey, Bekah and me

Jen, Sandi, Marie and Kelsey

4th year roomies! {Sandi, me and Kelsey}

Then we all lined up alphabetically and waited for 15-20 minutes for the ceremony to start.

Our graduation ceremony was held in Mariucci Arena. It is normally held in Northrup Aditorium but this year, they are remodeling the seating and hence the change in location. This was the first graduation held in Mariucci and the lighting was terrible so we barely got any good pictures :( 

The sound wasn't good either - really, REALLY echoy :( Oh well, at least the stage looked nice!

We all marched in. {2 by 2!}

{See. Poor lighting = poor pictures. I'm somewhere in this blurry mess!}

Ryan finally spotted me and snapped a picture. I am apparently still trying to locate my family in the audience.

I did eventually find them. "Hi guys!! I'm super happy to be graduating!!"

We all filed into our seats.

Josh Blue {from Last Comic Standing} was our keynote speaker. He has Cerebral Palsy and has brought being disabled to the center of many of his jokes. He gets people to think of people with disabilities and takes away some of the stigma associated with it.

Then started the process of hooding all of us graduates. All....230....plus....of....us. It took a long time but we were all given or 2 seconds of fame.

Climbing the stairs to the stage, getting ready for my name to {finally} be called.

"Dr. Ashley E Thorson" and then I received my hood. Ryan was balancing the camera on his knee so the pictures didn't get all blurry and he most have gotten excited for me as I got a head shot of being hooded :-)

Then there was a line of people to shake our hands and take our pictures with. The first guy, I'm not even sure who he was, must have been from the Twin Cities, but all he said was "K" then shook my hand and as I walked forward he stopped me so we could get our picture taken together.

The second person in the hand-shake line was from Duluth. He didn't remember who I was, so I shook his hand and was moving on to the next person in line and he did this weird gesture which made me think "Oh he remembers me. He must want a hug." Wrong! So it was awkward as I put my arm out for a hug and then was denied and made to take a picture with him. Ha! We do not have photographic evidence of this encounter on our personal family camera {maybe this isn't such a bad thing}.

The last person in the hand shake line with Dr. Stillman from HCMC. I had my second internal medicine at HCMC and Dr. Stillman was the medical student coordinator. He was fantastic! And he taught as all about heart and lung sounds. I learned quite a bit from him actually. He's one of my favorites from that rotation.

We hugged.

And took a good picture!

After that I made my way back to my seat by way of this ramp off stage. I had to concentrate to make sure I didn't fall! Again, bad lighting + movement = bad picture. Oh well.

Caution: Big Happy Cheesy Grin Ahead 

{I'm sure if this picture would have been clearer, I would have been smiling so big that my nostrils would have been flaring. Maybe the non-crispness of this photo is a good thing -ha!}

After all the names were called {there was an exceptionally loud round of clapping and cheering after the last name was called}, everyone took there seat and we had a Native American drum ceremony {since the mission of the U of M-Duluth Med School has a mission of educating Native Americans}. These same people played at my white coat ceremony on the beginning of first year. I think it is really neat {and not to mention Ryan is at least 1/4 Native American so I like to learn more about the culture}.

We all took the Oath of a New Physician

Then processed up and out of Mariucci.

By the time we climbed the many number of stairs to get to the top of the arena, it wasn't only warm, but it was down right HOT underneath those graduation gown and hoods {which weren't able to be buttoned down in front, so the weight of the hood practically choked your neck}.

Then came all the families and friends to the common area in the arena and people could barely move. All I wanted to do was get outside where is was cooler. I eventually, little by little made it outside, and took more pictures with some of my classmates that I could find amongst all the madness and my family.

Steve! My father-in-law. I swear I remember taking pictures with my in-laws after the ceremony but they aren't on my camera. I'm praying that they are on my mom's camera :/

My proud parents!

I got the beautiful daisies and tulips from my sisters, the red rose from Ryan and the pink rose from my in-laws. I might be biased, by I think I had the best looking flowers of any graduate! We missed you Hill!

I'll have to post more pictures when I get them. There are several I remember taking but just aren't on my camera. I'm really hoping my picture with Ryan's family are on my mom's camera or Renee's camera. {Keeping my fingers crossed!}

After all the picture taking, I ditched the graduation grab and the fam and I headed to Ichiban for dinner. It was delish!!! 

Poor Kristin, she sat across the table from me, so she is in most of the pictures. Haha. Here she is prepping her chopstick skills for dinner.

 Getting ready to cook the onion! Look out!

 Holy Fire!!! Just about burned my eyebrows off. Well, not really, but that would have made for a good story. {I love Kristin's face in this picture!}

 The fire starting to settle down a bit.

 The chef wasted no time and got to the fried rice.

 Here the chef is tossing the fried rice from one bowl to another. Didn't even make a mess. {I'm pretty sure the rice stayed in the same bowl the entire time, but I can't prove it.}

 Letting off some steam :)

 The vegetables were SO delicious!!

 Cooking the shrimp and chicken.

 Kristin and Dave

 Mom and Dad enjoying the night {until the bill came - ha - just kidding! But on a side note, thanks for dinner mom and dad - you're the best!}

Going out to dinner with Ryan, my parents, Kristin and Dave, my in-laws Steve and Renee and my uncle Curt was so much fun and the food was so good! {Not having eaten lunch due to the timing of the class photo, etc might have contributed to the reason why I devoured my dinner.} I was bummed Hillary and Ryan couldn't make it but they were back in Duluth jamming out to Elton John :-) 

Ryan was kind enough to drive home while I sat in the passenger seat and complained about how bad my feet hurt until I feel asleep out of pure exhaustion. I remember getting home, getting out of the car, going upstairs, going straight to bed. I think I was back sleeping before my head even hit the pillow. I was out like a light! Ryan and I slept until 930ish the next morning and even then we still couldn't wake up. Must be evidence that we had a great time the night before :-)

~Ashley, MD