After weeks of waiting on pins and needles (not!), I'm finally able to display my $75,000 piece of paper on my bookshelf. And my name is printed in a plain, computer-generated, Roman-based, serif font. It's not even printed in italics. Borrrring.

However, it's all worth it when I glance down to see the words "WITH HONORS" written in small caps underneath my degree. My family thinks it's real impressive that I graduated with honors, so I'm not going to bother to tell them that over half the class did as well. I mean, why ruin the mystique of law school for them? Now my mom can tell her co-workers that her daughter graduated from a top 20 (we are still top 20, right? I mean, at least for now?) with honors. And that will make her feel special, even if it doesn't mean that I am.

I'm just happy that despite the Great GPA Decline of 2007, I still managed to stay above the cut-off and do my part to make the "with honors" designation absolutely worthless to people who have like a 3.6 or higher. Mwahahahaha. I get my kicks where I can these days.

On the other hand, I'm really disappointed in how plain the diploma is. If I'd have known that they were just going to print our names without first bothering to change the font to Edwardian Script or something pretty and flowy, I'd have requested my name be left blank so that I could have one of my fellow Southwest Calligraphy Guild members write it in real pretty like. (Yes, I am a member of the Southwest Calligraphy Guild. I haven't practiced in ages or paid dues since 2004, and it may have disbanded while I was in law school, but at one time I was a member and I can make some really pretty paste paper... so there.)

But instead I have to look at Plainy McPlainerson, aka my law degree and wonder why it took them so long to get it to me when all they did was run it through a printer.