Pinning Ceremony

Next up in the Graduation-Season-Gala-Extravaganza-Event was our pinning ceremony. As you can tell from the left there, I finally made it to the big screen. The 100" plasma screens at my church that is. Our pinning event was held in my church building, mostly because I was able to negotiate an amazing deal on the cost, and as a venue it was pretty much perfect. It was a big point of contention that the school itself (because pinning is not a school supported event) was going to charge us out the ass to use their facilities. On top of that, if we held it at the school, on top of the rental fees, the audio-visual department within the nursing school would have to provide their services for a mandatory fat payment suggested donation of $1000. Given their track record, I we didn't want them to have any part of our ceremony. Not to mention the principle of paying to use facilities at an institution we'd just paid $40,000+ to, to earn the degree in the first place. Thankfully because I'm good friends with the facilities manager at our church, we got an amazing buddy deal. Full venue with professional audio-visual for a mere pittance over what just the audio-visual would have cost us at the school.

I gave my speech pretty much verbatim as posted here, save for a few added inside jokes (thanks for the suggestion Will). I also took the opportunity (and advantage of having a microphone) to tell my wife that I loved her when I made the point that we needed to tell those we love that we love them. I have it on good word from those that she was seated next to that it brought some tears to her eyes (mission accomplished). The speech went over well, and I received many compliments from families of classmates--complete strangers--as well as classmates and faculty. I enjoyed being up in front of so many people, and mercifully I wasn't the least bit nervous.

Here is my lovely wife pinning me on stage to the tune of Coldplay's Life in Technicolor. I really was privileged to be pinned by someone I love so much, who also happens to be an RN and working member of the profession. I even caught her getting a little teary eyed as she pinned me.

My service to the pinning committee was providing the venue, the heavy lifting, and the occasional reality check to the estrogen infused pinning committee meetings. There were essentially two other people that bore the brunt of the rest of the organizational duties, and they did an amazing job. The faculty present gave several comments to how nice our ceremony was, and how much they enjoyed it. The entire ceremony went off with only a minor hitch or two, which was gratifying considering the amount of work involved.

Overall I'm glad I was involved as I was in the planning and execution of this event. In the past I wouldn't have bothered with something so inane and peckish. I hope that's a sign that I'm really going to take to this nursing thing.