Are Graduations meant to be boring?

March 1st is graduation day. This year it fell on a Thursday, which meant that the festivities happened during a school day with no classes for any of the students. This also means that the turnout for observers is quite few due to it being a workday. The audience consisted of mostly housewife mothers. The graduates wear their normal uniform, and sit through a pretty boring ceremony. Though, do realize that perhaps my inability to understand long droning speeches in Japanese may affect the veracity of my opinion. The ceremony began with each San-nen-sei (3rd year students or seniors) entering the gym in pairs, bowing in unison, then walking to their seats.

The ichi-nen-sei and ni-nen-sei (1st and 2nd years) sit in the back of the gym, occasionally being prodded by teachers to wake up and pay attention. I'm not sure if I ever mentioned the little towlie fetish these girls have, but they bring those little square handtowels with them everywhere. I'm not really sure of their purpose, but i bought one and carried it around to see what the big deal was, and it wasn't that great.
This photo is to give you an idea of the amount of on-seers attending their child's graduation.After all the students are seated, each homeroom teacher takes roll and each student says "hai" for the last time in their high school career.

Afterwards, the teachers had a special bento box graduation lunch. I am covering the clam i devoured before realizing I should take a picture of it. And if this is natto rice, then i like natto.