Becky’s and my friend Adrienne Graves turns 21 today! Happy birthday, Adrienne!

Sorry for the lack of updates in recent days. I’ve been busy with school work and such. But, I’m almost done now; three weeks and a day until graduation, and I only really have two things left to do in school: one journalism paper and one political-science final exam. After that, I’m outta here. Real world (or law school), here I come!

Well, USC has picked its keynote speaker for this year’s commencement ceremony: Brown University president Ruth Simmons, the first black president of an Ivy League university.

Yeah, I never heard of her either.

But that’s not surprising. USC is in the midst of a solid streak of never-head-of-’em graduation speakers. The last two: David Halberstam in 2002, and Barry Munitz in 2001. (”Who?” you ask. Exactly.)

It didn’t used to be this way: we had Michael Eisner in 2000, Warren Christopher in 1999, Bill Cosby in 1998, and Jack Kemp in 1997.

Oh, well. Dr. Simmons doesn’t sound so bad. Here’s a Newsweek profile of her, and here’s a Newsweek news article about her. And here’s the Brown University press release from when she was elected president. Oh, and here’s the Brown Daily Herald article (cached by Google) from when she was elected.

UPDATE, 02/15/03: My cousin Alexis, a Smith College student presently studying in Scotland, made the following comment in my guestbook:

Hey buddy….I’ve got a bone to pick with you Cuz!!! Ruth Simmons is the most intellegent woman I have ever met in my life. She is an amazing public speaker and you should be extremely greatful that she decided to grace your little graduation with her talents and person. I have had the priviledge of speaking with her personally and I can tell you that she is one amazing person, much better then Bill Cosby I would bet! Before she had the well deserved and long overdue pleasure of becoming the first African American president of an “Ivy” college, she was the president of another equally prestigious college….SMITH (ya dope!!) You’d better do better with your journalistic research before you go insulting you cousins or other family members!! :)

Okay, okay, I surrender. (I’ve been taking lessons from Jacques Chirac.) I’m sure Dr. Simmons is an amazing person, and will be a great speaker at my graduation. I was, frankly, just cranky when I posted this, and thus was being rather snide for no good reason. Anyway, celebrity isn’t everything — four years in L.A. hasn’t made me that shallow. So yeah, woohoo, go Dr. Simmons.

Now, Alexis, while you’re over on that side of the Atlantic, will you tell those Europeans to get over themselves? :)

…and the news is good. I got 3 A’s and 2 A-’s, for my second consecutive 3.86 semester. (Actually, it’s 3.86666666667, which distinctly rounds up to 3.87. Yet USC says it’s 3.86. Why the heck do they always round down? Bastards, I tell you…) That puts me easily on the Dean’s List (which has a 3.5 minimum), and makes me generally quite happy.

It’s a HUGE improvement over the beginning of my college career, when I slacked off in quite a few classes, turned in several key papers late, and emerged from my first two years at USC with an overall GPA of 3.281 and a journalism GPA of 3.14… way too low. Now, those numbers have improved to 3.496 overall (which I will take the luxury of rounding up to 3.5, thus allowing me to assert that my college career as a whole thus far qualifies for the Dean’s List) and 3.609 in journalism.

The huge improvements — 0.215 better overall, and a whopping 0.469 better in journalism — are due more to my pathetic performance in a few classes freshman and sophomore years than to any great leap of wisdom this year. But still, I’m obviously very happy and proud that I’ve been able to pull those numbers up. And it further suggests to me that maybe I am graduate/law school material, after all. When are those LSAT dates again?

Sorry, I don’t mean to brag. I was just… well… okay, I guess I did mean to brag. But why the hell not? This is my website! :)

In other news, my parents’ 25th anniversary is May 28, and they’re having a big party to celebrate it on May 31. Should be fun. More details on that as it approaches.

Just finished my last final exam. All academic work for my junior year is now complete. I’m officially a senior!!! A senior in college!!! Now that’s scary. 3 days and 90 minutes till I ship off for home…

One exam left till I’m a senior!