Growing Up, Moving On #53: Snapshots

So you book a hotel and travel back to you University town the day before. Your parents come and see you and you hang out in the evening, before going to bed.

The next day, you get up and get dressed all posh before you can even string together a coherent sentence and you and your similarly-dressed family all head off to the venue for the big day.

Once there, you bump into everyone you knew and chat to the people you like, while skillfully dodging the people you don’t want to talk to for whatever reason. You pick up your gown and feel like a retard wearing it for roughly three seconds, because everybody else is dressed the same and it’s all cool. The trick is keeping you head straight so the motar stays on.

Next your family take some many pictures they could redecorate the house with images of your face and you wander around, trying to find people you know again.

Everybody’s proud. There’s a strange sense of accomplishment in the air, it’s hard to pin down, but the pride of all the parents sort of mingles above the throngs of people like a mushroom cloud of happiness and disbelief.

Finally the doors to the hall open and all the graduates separate from their families and head inside, struggling to find a seat and exchanging jokes with former lecturers (apparently Jack and I are known as “The Terrible Twosome” and I have no idea why…)

A huge group of people march in to music as if they’re attending a funeral and the mood changes to something weirdly solemn. The head of all the heads of the Uni gives a speech she hasn’t written that veers all over the place and references Obama several times. Then the honarary graduates collect their awards. Basically, they are people who didn’t go to the Uni, hell some of them didn’t go full stop, but they are fairly famous people (ITN’s main reporter Mark Austin and The Police’s Andy Summers.)

With that out the way, the procession begins. At this point, hope to all hell that you are a long way down on the list, or you will find yourself having a very dull day.

People walk on stage when their names are called, wave to cheering, clapping families if they aren’t afraid of looking at crowds and move across the stage. They bow to the Pro-Chancellor (the Head of Heads mentioned earlier) as they pass, shake Vice-Chancellor Paul Curran’s hand and walk off the stage, collecting their certificate as they leave.

And that’s kind of it. The whole thing lasts about an hour and a half and, as said earlier, it would suck if you go first.

Once it’s done, you leave the hall and meet up with your parents, who are somehow even prouder than before. Then you hand the gown back and go off for a meal with them.

Later on, you return for the Grad Ball, but that’s a story for another day. Thursday, to be precise.

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