Vitnemålsutdeling - Graduation

Today is the day I take my first steps out into the world... I have completed 13 years of school and... WAIT!  Haven't I felt like this before?  OH YEAH!  I graduated from Woodstock Union High School last year and have just "re-graduated" from Thor Heyerdahl Videregående Skole. 

This past week has been spent practicing for the vitnemålsutdeling (literally "diploma ceremony") and I went and visited Miki in Sandefjord.  We pretty much just shopped and ate at Micky D's. 

Today was a really memorable day.  Today was perfect.  I don't want to forget today.  Ever.

Today was graduation from videregående skole for all of the kids in Larvik who are in third grade (age 18).  It is VERY different from graduation at home.  There were no caps or gowns... There were no valedictorians or salutatorians...  We didn't throw our hats into the air... And we didn't necessarily get diplomas. 

Today started out like any other day thinking back to when I lived på Langestrand (I'm living here with my second host family while my mom and brother are here in Norway) - Helle drove me to school and I met up with my friends.  But, instead of having class, we turned in our text books and all drove down to Farris Bad and bought some drinks at Meny and sat out on the beach at Langestrand.  I rode with Line K and Sondre to the building of Studio Nille and we walked over to Meny where we met up with everyone else.  We bought sodas/juice and snacks like potato chips and walked over to the becah.  Mari and I ran down the beach with our bare feet splashing through the water, we all sat and talked and the boys and I used a volleyball in place of a soccer ball while we took in the fresh air.  A little after 11, I got back into Line K's car and we went to Sondre's house to pick up some stuff he needed and then we came back down to Bølgen. 

We did light and sound checks for what seemed like forever and rehearsed a little bit before going to Peppe's Pizza to have a lunch together.  Linke did wonders with my hair... Alice took the most flattering pictures I have ever seen... Endre and I talked about Canada and if Peppe's Pizza was actually American or not... I taught everyone how to pop straws... We all reminisced... We laughed until we cried...  (some of us...)

When we got back to Bølgen, I put on my "graduation dress" which was originally my confirmation dress (seems fitting, and I'll talk about that in a little while), did my makeup and Line K did my hair.  The majority of girls who were graduating had their bunads on.  I talked about this a lot in the May 17th post and it was mentioned other times, but it is pretty normal that kids get bunads for their confirmation in Norway.  The fact that I wore the dress I got confirmed in like a lot of people had their bunads from confirmation on was just a coincidence. 



Endre giving me my "diploma"

 My school in Norway is so big that we had to have two graduations so that parents could come to see, otherwise we would have taken up the big auditorium alone.  The graduation started with us walking in to Mari (my piano teacher) playing the piano, then rektor (the principal) spoke to us and then my group played "Someone Like You" by Adele.  The rest of the program was getting our diplomas (which were actually just report cards), various songs performed by other groups in music line and a dance from the dance line as well as some more speeches.  Both went really well, except that I couldn't hear the drums to come in in the beginning of the first graduation.. but it sounded really good anyway! 

I'm going to have to cut this short and go to bed because Kristian is picking me up at 9 AM tomorrow to go pick up MY MOM AND BROTHER FROM THE AIRPORT!!! 

Here's just a cute little comparison picture ^^ neither graduation style is better than the other... But I just found the differences very amusing. :D