Convocation

So I went to my convocation last night. Fun times. Got all tricked out in a billowing black gown and a lovely hood, trimmed with two bands of hot pink, as if the Faculty of Information Studies (once known as the Faculty of Library and Information Science) wanted to say, "Yes, ours is a profession dominated by women, but this ain't your grandma's library school!" Other faculties got green and grey and yellow and even orange, but we got hot pink. Super.

I'd post a pic but I left the camera at home. However, a photo-proof, snapped as I stood fear-grinning into a camera lens in a corridor in Convocation Hall, clutching my diploma, is in the mail. I'm sure I look as lovely as I did at my undergraduate convocation - i.e. overexposed to the point of looking anemic, my eyes half-closed. Oh, and is it a rule that academic photographers and their assistants have to be complete nitwits? I'm just wondering. Sample comments from the photo crew as the newly graduated shuffled through the corridor:

"Hey, big guy, what's wrong with your gown?"

"Let's get you carrying this diploma like you do it every day."

"Hey, tiger - your hood's on crooked"

"Keep smiling that beautiful smile"

"Hey, halfwit, shut the hell up and get out of my face" (That was me. In my head).

Anyway. So it's done, my formal schooling is over for now. I've got a string of letters after my name and a job and some debt, some grey hair. I sat up some nights writing papers until I started drooling on my keyboard. I ranted plenty. I cried about once a week on average. I laughed a lot. I worked at four different jobs and got loads of experience I wouldn't have had otherwise. I went through about fifteen pairs of shoes. I still have recurring nightmares about writing an exam for a course I've never taken. I grew my hair long. I learned how to do second-level cataloguing. I developed a taste for vodka (these last two are not unrelated). It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

So, like, yeah. OK. Next!