High school graduation is one of the big events in a young person's life. Pick said to me that high school graduation was not a big deal. You still have college aftewards, and its graduation is more final. But I can't really agree. There is a real break here between the old and the new. Especially regarding your friends.

Up until the end of high school, chances are you and the rest of your friends had no real choice about which grade school, middle school and high school you attended. Unless your parents did something like move away or transfer you to a private school, you've known some of these people practically all your life.

College is the first chance where you can choose where you're going. Sure, the choice may just be one of three community colleges in the area, but it is a choice. And chances are you and your friends will be scattered. For many it's a last goodbye. Friendships in college will be deeper and longer lasting than those in high school.

This may just be me, but that is what I believe. In college you try define yourself. You're independent and on your own. The friends you make here will greatly influence this development, as you do the same to them. So I think there is an ending after high school. Graduation marks the end of your old life and the start of adulthood.

The reason I bring this up is that my brother graduated today. Hiram Johnson's West Campus is practically its own high school now, so I'm not too sure why it is still called West Campus. Three hundred students graduated along with my brother, a small pond of scarlet sitting attentively as the various speakers take their turns giving advice and congratulating the class.

And when it's finally over, after the solemn procession of students file past the school principal and other dignitaries as they receive their diplomas, after the cap tossing when the newly graduating class of 2000 is introduced, after the chaotic mess of people afterwards as families congratulate their sons and daughters, after all that what then?

For Chris there was a family dinner at a Chinese Restaurant. Then a grad night and a last fling to say goodbye and to celebrate with friends. For the parents it's just another step for their son, as he still has to complete college before their parental obligations are done. For my sister Stephanie and I, it is a chance to reminisce about our graduations, and to reflect on Christopher's future at UC Davis.

For me, high school graduation was more traumatic than college graduation. It seemed worse because all my friends were going to scatter to attend schools elsewhere. And in college I didn't make that many friends in my particular school. Most of the friends I made had other majors with other graduations. It was actually a bit lonely sitting there with aquaintances but not really good friends. Still, we knew we'd be staying in the area afterwards, so college graduation wasn't that big of a deal. Just a signal that now we had to get real jobs and make our own way in the world.

I suppose graduating from middle school was just as non-eventful. I don't think my parents went to the ceremony, and neither did I. Although my best friend Brandon was moving to Auburn, the rest of my friends would also be going to the same high school. So it was going to be another summer with the only difference being that we'd be Freshmen again come September.

I guess that at the end of this spiel, I can say that high school graduation was the most eventful of the three, the most memorable and the most poignant.