#45 - Graduation

Even though the school year abruptly ended on the last day of February, we still had a graduation ceremony. The catch--the program was shortened into just 1 hr (No boring speeches from school officials! :P), and only the teachers, graduating students and their parents were allowed to attend. Also, we were all required to wear masks and were seated a meter apart.

Anyway, this is the corsage I wore for the ceremony. Ordinarily, the students from the lower years (1st and 2nd grade junior high) make them, but since they weren't allowed to come to school this time, it was up to us teachers to make them ourselves.

We made about 100 of them the day before graduation and while it was fun, they were really quite difficult to make. And we had to make so many! But anyway, I think they turned out pretty great.

Well, this was the last graduation ceremony for junior high that I get to attend. Next school year, I'll be working at an elementary school. So, I kind of considered this to be my graduation, too. It was really too bad that it was so short, and there wasn't enough time to say goodbye to the students. But in a way, I guess it's better because I didn't get to cry so much. And I'm not too focused on leaving the school that I love, because somehow these days, things like these seem trivial in comparison to the rest of the events going on in the world.

People all over the world are on lockdown, including my own family. I've been trying not to read the news or my Facebook feed because they said that would cause panic, but at the same time, I'm so worried about everyone. And there's no sense downplaying what's happening, because downplaying it is exactly what caused it to be so widespread in the first place. But anyway, there are still things to be grateful for, and I think I'm just going to focus on those.