Graduation
Graduation. A day later, I have surprisingly little to say about it, beyond: it was fun and it was, in its way, meaningful. And not in the very earnest way it was supposed to be, either - I mean, the Vice-Chancellor spoke VERY LOUDLY about traditions and values and this university is of eight hundred years' foundation, but, well, there's meaning, and there's meaning, and the ceremony was in Latin - but in things like the dreadful raw drizzle (just like, Claire observed with acerbity, our matriculation, and halfway hall, and the summer events, and when I finished my Finals, and when she finished her Finals and a month's worth of rain fell on Oxford in one afternoon), and running down to the porters' lodge at nine in the morning and telling the porters I had no a) gown b) ribbon c) sense of self-preservation, and they kitted me out with two out of the three without asking me who the hell I was, because they knew.
Nine am actually got a lot more bearable when I was cheerfully squished by Claire, Pat and Liya as they appeared, and then we were nicely sub-fusced and shepherded away to be rehearsed for the ceremony. This proved... difficult. "Everyone line up," said the bedel. "BAs, you go last. Four lines of four. Now I say the oath. Now bow. To the centre. To the left. No, your left! No, not in cascade! Mind your head! Now say, 'Do fidem'. No, all at once!" I observed later that there is something vey liberating about a whole day devoted to receipt of an Oxford degree. You can fail to understand as many basic instructions as you damn well like.
Once he had decreed us not actual failures as human beings, we filed through the rain to the Sheldonian, sat down at the back and swiftly realised that being a) BAs, and thus the lowest of the low; and b) the earliest date of foundation (1263), we were going to be last, and amused ourselves by being rude about the Vice-Chancellor's Latin (he's new; it was his first degree ceremony). After several repetitions, he still wasn't getting "in nomine patris" quite right, and manfully reaching for hard consonants but not always succeeding. (luminometrice noted that you could tell which of the college deans were theologians and classicists - when reciting their oaths, they put the stresses in the right places).
Actually bowing and taking the oath is a little bit of a blur - appropriately for the crowning intellectual achievement of my life so far, I got left and right mixed up at the crucial moment, but I managed to remember my two words of Latin and was very proud of myself - and then we went out stage left and ran for it. Because we were the very last people out, we had to run to the Divinity School and be told sternly by the porters that we had exactly a minute and a half to get dressed and we should all stand perfectly still, and raise our arms. And then it was another sudden blur, and then I was wearing a big heavy black gown and a hood trimmed in white fur and being led through the Sheldonian to applause. We bowed one final time to the Vice-Chancellor, and then went outside to be met by parents and friends and constellations of camera flashes. And that was that: but I was a little emphatic about things all day and I think I still am; I stood there in the rain in that quad in October 2005 in sub fusc, and laughed and took pictures, and I stood there in that quad in October 2009 in that white-fur hood, and laughed and took pictures, with the same people, and no one can ever take the years in between away from me. I think that's important. Everyone laughed at me for finding this a large and startling thought. But I did, and I do.
In the Sheldonian, bowing just after taking the oath:
Me, back in Balliol's front quad, still with the hood:
(Pictures courtesy of shimgray, as usual, who generally reserves monochrome for whenever my university career is being Epically Epic. I quite like it, myself; as he notes, these pictures could have been taken any time in the last hundred and fifty years. Barring, obviously, the fact Balliol only admitted women in 1979, which is a fair caveat.)
Afterwards, Balliol put on one of their typical lunches (mediocre food, awesome deserts, which is what happens when you employ a pastry chef), and the party proceeded to drink wine, get tipsy, and bask a little bit. And at length arise and go unsteadily back into the real world some time in the mid-afternoon, where and when the sun had come out.
Today, I have had the nicest day I have had in a long time; there was an extra hour of sleep, and then there were scones, and I am on reading week and Shim is on holiday, so there was no work whatsoever, and an afternoon watching The Return of the King, and then an evening in the closest pub, where they gave us a free dessert. I don't feel very different now I am a graduate and not a graduand, now I really hold an honours degree in philosohy, politics and economics rather than a slip of paper saying I can pick one up, shopping-list-like, at any time. But something was underlined, maybe: yesterday and today, I did not change, but I can look at this neat slice cut out of time and say, yes, I was seventeen, and this is who I grew up to be.
Nine am actually got a lot more bearable when I was cheerfully squished by Claire, Pat and Liya as they appeared, and then we were nicely sub-fusced and shepherded away to be rehearsed for the ceremony. This proved... difficult. "Everyone line up," said the bedel. "BAs, you go last. Four lines of four. Now I say the oath. Now bow. To the centre. To the left. No, your left! No, not in cascade! Mind your head! Now say, 'Do fidem'. No, all at once!" I observed later that there is something vey liberating about a whole day devoted to receipt of an Oxford degree. You can fail to understand as many basic instructions as you damn well like.
Once he had decreed us not actual failures as human beings, we filed through the rain to the Sheldonian, sat down at the back and swiftly realised that being a) BAs, and thus the lowest of the low; and b) the earliest date of foundation (1263), we were going to be last, and amused ourselves by being rude about the Vice-Chancellor's Latin (he's new; it was his first degree ceremony). After several repetitions, he still wasn't getting "in nomine patris" quite right, and manfully reaching for hard consonants but not always succeeding. (luminometrice noted that you could tell which of the college deans were theologians and classicists - when reciting their oaths, they put the stresses in the right places).
Actually bowing and taking the oath is a little bit of a blur - appropriately for the crowning intellectual achievement of my life so far, I got left and right mixed up at the crucial moment, but I managed to remember my two words of Latin and was very proud of myself - and then we went out stage left and ran for it. Because we were the very last people out, we had to run to the Divinity School and be told sternly by the porters that we had exactly a minute and a half to get dressed and we should all stand perfectly still, and raise our arms. And then it was another sudden blur, and then I was wearing a big heavy black gown and a hood trimmed in white fur and being led through the Sheldonian to applause. We bowed one final time to the Vice-Chancellor, and then went outside to be met by parents and friends and constellations of camera flashes. And that was that: but I was a little emphatic about things all day and I think I still am; I stood there in the rain in that quad in October 2005 in sub fusc, and laughed and took pictures, and I stood there in that quad in October 2009 in that white-fur hood, and laughed and took pictures, with the same people, and no one can ever take the years in between away from me. I think that's important. Everyone laughed at me for finding this a large and startling thought. But I did, and I do.
In the Sheldonian, bowing just after taking the oath:
Me, back in Balliol's front quad, still with the hood:
(Pictures courtesy of shimgray, as usual, who generally reserves monochrome for whenever my university career is being Epically Epic. I quite like it, myself; as he notes, these pictures could have been taken any time in the last hundred and fifty years. Barring, obviously, the fact Balliol only admitted women in 1979, which is a fair caveat.)
Afterwards, Balliol put on one of their typical lunches (mediocre food, awesome deserts, which is what happens when you employ a pastry chef), and the party proceeded to drink wine, get tipsy, and bask a little bit. And at length arise and go unsteadily back into the real world some time in the mid-afternoon, where and when the sun had come out.
Today, I have had the nicest day I have had in a long time; there was an extra hour of sleep, and then there were scones, and I am on reading week and Shim is on holiday, so there was no work whatsoever, and an afternoon watching The Return of the King, and then an evening in the closest pub, where they gave us a free dessert. I don't feel very different now I am a graduate and not a graduand, now I really hold an honours degree in philosohy, politics and economics rather than a slip of paper saying I can pick one up, shopping-list-like, at any time. But something was underlined, maybe: yesterday and today, I did not change, but I can look at this neat slice cut out of time and say, yes, I was seventeen, and this is who I grew up to be.