![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Another Doctor in the family
Jun. 4th, 2009 03:23 pmI have no idea who invented graduations in this country. My own graduation in St Andrews in Scotland (after moving up from Hogwarts, naturally) was a quite pleasant experience that I sort of summarized unconventionally at the time, and was a lunch in the Grill House, a short walk down to the Younger Hall (which was assembled from various bits that had dropped off other buildings) and then a service with some singing, some Latin and a speech from a mad old Polish man, and it was all over by the middle of the afternoon.
But here, they're held before normal humans get up in the morning, involve sitting around while several thousand students at once file over the stage, being able to see the person you were there for only for about two seconds, and - brace yourself - might have Bianca Jagger. I must say I had it easier than the rest of my family-in-law this morning because I didn't arrive until 11:30, and even that was later than I thought because I hadn't taken into account that at that time I would be the only person on any bus who didn't require assistance getting on or off. I had thought I was joining them for the PhD presentations, but it emerged that what were were actually doing was sitting in a lecture hall in the Science Center one building away, watching them remotely on a projection screen (and a lot of that time was spent waiting for the brass ensemble to stop playing the three or four songs they knew on an endless loop and quieten down). I feel a bit cheated, really.
But my brother-in-law now has a PhD, and that's amazing. Tonight we're going to have dinner to celebrate, but goodness knows where - I innocently went to check the menu of the place that had been booked months ago last night, just to see what it was like, and was greeted by the site informing me that they no longer existed. That's the kind of thing that you'd think they would phone people with existing reservations up to mention. So an alternative reservation is being hunted down today, though I'm imagining that with the graduations most of the city will be booked solid - I hope that we don't end up having a graduation McDonalds.
But here, they're held before normal humans get up in the morning, involve sitting around while several thousand students at once file over the stage, being able to see the person you were there for only for about two seconds, and - brace yourself - might have Bianca Jagger. I must say I had it easier than the rest of my family-in-law this morning because I didn't arrive until 11:30, and even that was later than I thought because I hadn't taken into account that at that time I would be the only person on any bus who didn't require assistance getting on or off. I had thought I was joining them for the PhD presentations, but it emerged that what were were actually doing was sitting in a lecture hall in the Science Center one building away, watching them remotely on a projection screen (and a lot of that time was spent waiting for the brass ensemble to stop playing the three or four songs they knew on an endless loop and quieten down). I feel a bit cheated, really.
But my brother-in-law now has a PhD, and that's amazing. Tonight we're going to have dinner to celebrate, but goodness knows where - I innocently went to check the menu of the place that had been booked months ago last night, just to see what it was like, and was greeted by the site informing me that they no longer existed. That's the kind of thing that you'd think they would phone people with existing reservations up to mention. So an alternative reservation is being hunted down today, though I'm imagining that with the graduations most of the city will be booked solid - I hope that we don't end up having a graduation McDonalds.
