Graduation

Naomi is wearing her formal gear and looks more snazzy than I do. She tried on my gown and hood this morning and we took a photo for fun. I can just imagine her graduating in four or five years. If you want to imagine me, I'm dressed in a dark skirt, white shirt with half-length sleeves, sandals, standard black gown and BSc hood: black outside, green silk lined and pale blue binding, pinned down in a V on my chest with the silk hanging behind my head, although it has a tendency to slide upwards and take my shirt with it up between my breasts.

Later.
My hood must have slipped down a hundred times, and my feet are very sore. Naomi valeted me like Alice and the White Queen in the toilets in the Student's Union. There were lots of other girls in there, all wrestling with our hoods, and there was a real feeling of cameraderie, even with people I'd never seen before in my life. I met Jane as I was looking up my seat number outside the Whitla Hall. We were nowhere near each other, as I was in with the Firsts and she was away over with the 2:2s. I was on the aisle seat, beside a boy called Graeme I knew a bit (he did Maths), so at least I had someone to talk to while everyone was piling in and finding their seats. It was being filmed, and projected on to a screen at the front of the hall, so we had fun trying to spot ourselves. I casually adjusted my hood, and watched for the movement on the screen. Once I spotted myself I was easy to see because my white collar was showing at the neck of my gown. Some of the guests waves at the camera, but I don't think any of the graduands had the neck to do so. There was an Oxford man playing the organ the whole time, and finishing with a triumphal march as the academic procession came in.
Then of course they filmed the academic procession as it proceeded out of the front of the Lanyon and over to the hall. All the procession was gowned of course; lots of PhDs, special ones for the Vice-Chancellor and Deans, and some others I didn't know. I didn't crane my head around to look at it coming up the aisle, but just watched it out of the corner of my eye as it went by. Everyone had a gown, even the people without degrees like the ushers had a plain gown with no hood. Two people who looked like international students carried the maces.
Incidentlly, this is the first time I learned that my dad, as a Reader of the University, was eligible to walk in the academic procession on the Agriculture graduation day, though he never did. I don't think he's worn a gown since he took his PhD.
An honoray doctorate was granted to a woman who was the blind waterskiing champion of the world or something like that.
Then they went on to the rest of the degrees. The Vice-Chancellor conferred them en masse before we all went up to receive our parchments (which are paper really).Then we all filed up row by row: first the PhD's, the the Master's, then the Firsts (including me!), then 2:1, 2:2, Thirds and Passes. Da said he tried to tke a photo, but I was going across the stage like an express train. Probably faster than some of NIR's express trains. My full name was read out, then I crossed to the Vice-Chancellor (he said, Well done, [Christian name] to everyone as far as I could make out), made a bow as instructed in the sheet they passed around before the beginning, and down again at the other side, get your degree certificate and sit down again. I was a little disappointed there was no Latin. Three years of slog, you'd think a little Latin isn't a lot to ask.
The PhDs had on what Dad calls the 'monkey suit', a scarlet and purple silk gown, and the Masters had the same as mine, but with red on their hoods where we had black. That'll be you in a year's time, doyle_sb4!
Then after everyone had been up, the Vice-Chancellor dissolved the Kirk Session (not really, but it was a similar form of words. I think it was a congregation for the Conferment of Degrees.) Organ swells and the academic procession files out again, but this time the new graduates join on to the end. I really liked that bit, because it was as though we were accepted as academics, we are scholars now, graduates of Queens University. The hood made a satisfying weight on my shoulders, too. I feel as though the last three years were condensed into that hood and gown: Bachelor of Science, physicist. I'll always have that.

Then it was smile-for-the-camera times about fifty, Naomi expanded her job description to include make-up artist, and lunch. After that, we went back to the Whitla for a Physics Class of 2004 group photo. There are only about 35 graduates, and we all knew each other, so all the old in-jokes dating back to first year were trotted out. The photographer made us smile by saying "Beer!", but at about photo #6, someone in the back row piped up, "We're already hung over!" It was just starting to rain at that point, so we headed for the physics building, where the staff had laid on the usual gala fare: crisps and cheap wine. doyle_sb4 turned up about this point, looking severely underdressed. Professor Whittaker presented the Level Three and Level Four prizes, and I got to point out to my family all the usual suspects and shake hands with lots of lecturers. Then Professor Graham unlocked the new physics building and showed us it, possibly hoping to attract wavering PhD candidates. It's very shiny, but slightly tacky and looks rather like a nightclub. The new postgraduate area is at the back and very open, and looks out over the Botanical Gardens. It'll be lovely to work there. All that hammering and plaster dust and piledriving has made something useful, though I didn't see any replacement for the female toilets that disappeared into the building work. The place where they were is now an open balconey, suitable for jumping when one's research is going badly. (Tip for attracting female students: Have more than one female toilet that is working and doesn't have to have its key fetched from the departmental secretary every time it is used.) There's a deep light well between the new bit and what was the back of the old building, with little bridges into the undergraduate lab corridors. It's a long drop down to the basement.

By this time the family were growing restive, so I said goodbye and we headed for the Garden Party in the Quad. We were there about ten minutes before the heavens opened and everyone made a mad dash for the marquees. I gathered up some traditional strawberries and cream while waiting for the rain to stop. Then I lost my family in the scrum (turned out they were waiting beneath the physics archway) and got my sandals wet running about over wet grass. I think I may have caught a cold out of it.
I met a few boys I knew who did Geography, and chatted to them for a bit. With everyone in best gear, and the little knots of graduates walking about in hoods and gowns, it looked almost like a picture of Oxford or somewhere, bar the lack of caps. (Queens doesn't have flat caps. My da says that the more polytechnical a universities origin is, the more likely it is to have caps, apart from old ones which invented the things to begin with). Mam met a guy who was at Queens when she and Dad were there, who had a daughter graduating from Law. She said it was 'as dry as dust' and is now going to start an English degree to become a teacher!

We dodged everyone else we knew, dumped the glad rags back at the Gown Store in the Admin building (with considerable regret on my part. I'd worked out how to manage the hood by this time and wanted to keep them) and went home to a pizza dinner. Mam had made chocolate cake, but one of the tins had tipped up so that layer was two inches thick at one side, and tapered to nothing at the other. Oh, well, she tried!

I'm very glad I went to the graduation now, because I had a brilliant time, and I think the family enjoyed it too.