Graduation Lowdown

So, I graduated! Yay me! Thanks for all the well wishes, peeps.

And I survived graduation weekend ---- the parties were no hardship, except for being very very tired from them all, but successfully dealing with my entire extended family was more of an accomplishment. They terrified my cats, who then hid under my bedcovers, and then they mocked them (the cats) for hiding there. My cats finally came out in the middle of the night (both nights) and since they had been very quiet and still, hiding from the crazy people all day, they had lots of energy to burn off and needed to make lots of meowing noises. Fun. It all added to the tiredness.

The day itself was beautiful --- a bit cloudy and a bit chilly, but man I appreciated it with those robes. Whoever pointed out that they would be hot and annoying was right! The ceremony itself was long and dull and had its few moments of shining in the spotlight and a few other moments of tearing up a bit ---- my many friends who are leaving me! We are all scattering to jobs on the four corners of the earth, and many of us have already scattered and were just coming back for this! And then, there is me. Hi. I might as well be unemployed here as anywhere, right? Ah well.
Here you can see that the day was mostly overcast ---- I took pictures of my row of fellow grads. Here are the tops of their hats.

I didn't pay attention to anyone's shoes, but there was a wide variety of other types of sartorial snazziness going on --- can I just say: bow ties. Yup. And it was cool to see profs hooding their students while wearing brilliant scarlet or hot pink or yellow or gray robes ---- the UC's colors are nice and all, but I kinda think I should have picked my grad program based entirely on doctoral robe bling.

The downside to graduating is that I'm not done, but man do I feel done. I have no desire whatsoever to finish up this whatever it is I need to turn in. What is it, a disserwhatchamacallit? Bleah. I also got peeved when I asked the grad next to me if I could have people call me "Doctor" now and she said no. She said it very forcefully, and I drooped, abashed. It's not like she's done either, and I wasn't even asking about "professor" as a title (which, since she has a job offer, she will be entitled to that title as soon as she does file and move there), but dammit, I want to use the title! The Chancellor, when he conferred on us our degrees, bestowed upon us the "rights and privileges thereunto," and using "Doctor" is the only privilege I can think of.

Hmm, what else? I made my family take me out to lunch (they were confused by the fancy restaurant with its California-fusion cuisine, and kept mocking the words they did not know, but whatever) and then out to a wonderful dinner at a place that usually specializes in wild game but this time only had "loin of buffalo." My dad said it was good. I had the NY strip and it was delicious! Mmmm, meat. My family did less mocking of the dinner because they recognize what steak and potatoes are, so it worked out well. Getting to each destination was a major trial, though, as the more people you have in a group, the harder it is to move them in an organized fashion. And we are far from organized as a people. (There was drama over contacting them on the way down, as they are incapable of running their cell phones, too.) My dad is getting both increasingly crabby and increasingly repetitive as he gets older, so I got to hear "finish your damn thesis already" a lot from him the other day. It may sound harsh, but I'm just ignoring him a lot of the time now; it keeps my blood pressure down.

Now that they've gone home I will set up some more rounds of graduation celebrations that can include drinking and swearing; many people in the department promised to buy me a beer after graduation and I'm going to hold them to that. If I work the scheduling out right I should be able to go out all summer and not have to make a beer budget. This pleases me. And tonight I need to work up some new lists and plans for summer, and finish prepping for my summer class (I get to teach a summer class! Yay!). I've just finished up my grading and now that the office has just opened I can transfer and store various piles, so I'm off.

Ah, a cog's work is never done. But sometimes she gets to rock a snazzy hat!