Graduation parties are done a variety of ways these days. Some opt for a once-in-a-lifetime trip. Some people decide to skip the stressful planning, saying “I’ll just take the money.” Others love the hectic lead up and decide to go all out: the catering, the arena, the whole shebang!

As everyone knows, food is free and fabulous and it tends to overshadow the main attraction, which is of course you. Bars and casseroles, although delicious, aren’t really me. So I’ll reference Sound of Music and tell you here are a few of my favorite things… First, I’m ordering cake from my favorite bakery, the Smiling Pelican. Which not only has the most diverse and exotic flavors of cake but also resides ten minutes from my favorite place in the world, my farm. Also on ‘the list’ is Melintzanosalata with pitas. Melintzanosalata is a dip which basically consists of eggplant pureed with fabulous spices. Continuing with my love of vegetables, and indirectly the outdoors, the party will also include huge chunks of cucumbers and tomatoes. Considering I am a resident of Excelsior, Adele’s ice cream is a must. And finally rounding off this list we have Emily’s Lebanese Deli’s Salad, which not only reminds me of volunteering downtown but because it is relatively near to the U it is symbolic of my next four years.

You can see that it’s evident that there is no theme. Do eggplant and ice cream really go together? Technically, no. However, each one of these things represents a little part of me. In life, I like to dabble in everything and to me having a mismatched menu is ok because that’s me. I’m a little bit of everything and I like it like that!

I thought (narrow-mindedly, I might add) that my grad party was unique because it was a representation of me. BUT then I thought again, everyone’s grad party is a representation of themselves and that’s what makes them unique. Whether you have one or you don’t, the decisions we make about our grad party in our final days at MHS are representative of who we are as people.