Well, everything's done and over, and I have officially been a graduate with my Master's degree for almost a week now. What has happened in the past week since, however, is a very long, multi-part story of somewhat epic proportions. So, settle in, 'cause this will take several posts to tell. What I will say before I leap into it is that Daisy and I went to graduation and to the party without incident, then went to Omaha, dodged some horrific storms both here and there (and got caught in one particularly nasty one on Saturday night in Omaha), and then returned here to Newton safe and sound last night to the delight of my three beautiful, very loving kitties. This morning, she left for home so that she can return to work on her normal schedule tonight. And there's also this photo, which I believe is the best one taken of the two of us at graduation:
I should probably start from the beginning, which entails starting when Daisy arrived here last Thursday night around 12:20 or so. We were both tired; I had gone out, as you know, to purchase foods for us so that if she hadn't eaten, we could very quickly make something and go to bed, since we would be getting up very early Friday morning to go to campus. Daisy had already eaten, which saved us the trouble of doing anything, so we basically put stuff away and went to sleep -- and quite quickly, at that; we were in bed and sleeping probably less than an hour after she got here.
On Friday morning, I let Daisy sleep in while I got up and got dressed/nicotined/caffeinated. Daisy is a good sport; even though she barely slept (less than five hours that night, and about three hours or so the day before), she got up around 6 and got dressed/made-up for the day, and we left the house around 6:30 as per the usual.
Note: I never want to leave the house at 6:30 AM, but I do so because of parking on campus. Even though it was the last day of finals week, I also knew that I would have to pack up my office and knew that because of graduation going on that afternoon, many families would be getting to campus early, and that parking lot would fill up fast. I also had other paperwork to do -- as you know, I had to file the grade change form for my student whose grade was incorrect due to an error in my own calculations. I also found when I arrived on campus that a student who had skipped the actual final exam had taken it at disability services, and it was waiting in my mailbox to be graded -- so I had to file another grade change form for her as well, and update my records for her on Blackboard. Said student has not questioned her grade via email or anything like that (at least not that I know of, anyhow), so hopefully that will go through without issue.
As an aside, the student whose grade I miscalculated has sent me no less than fifteen emails over the course of the past week (no, I'm not kidding), even after I told him I filed the form and that they would change his grade, because even now it's not been changed yet. I forwarded one of those emails to the chair of the department because the student was basically freaking out and asking who he should talk to in order to speed up the process. Ultimately I was told to tell him to basically calm the fuck down, since it's a very busy time of year for the registrar/advising offices and that it can sometimes take well over a week for that stuff to be changed -- but it will be done. I feel bad for the guy because it was my error that he's stressing over, but really I've done all I can do at this point and there's really nothing he can do but wait on the registrars to fix it. If it's not fixed in another week, the chair told me that we can file a second form to make sure, but the point is that him freaking out and emailing me about it multiple times per day isn't helping the situation any.
Anyway. Back to the story.
We were able to pack up the rest of my office and get it out to the trunk of Daisy's car without incident -- the English Department office had a dolly that we were able to stack my boxes-o-stuff on and wheel them outside, which made everything easier (as well as made everything a go in one trip). I still have to unpack and sort through those boxes; they're all in my basement right now, stacked next to the washer and dryer, as we left for Omaha on Saturday afternoon and I did not have the time or patience to mess with them before we left. My office (or, I should say, my former office) is completely bare now; everything I had in there was either packed up and brought home or has been given away to friends -- I got rid of my miniature coffee pot, the TIE Fighter I had hanging on my ceiling (gave it to Parker), and the stormtrooper blaster I had in there (gave it to my officemate), as well as a bunch of the books I had but would never need or use again. I still had four full paper-ream boxes of stuff to take home. Over the course of three years, a lot of things get accumulated, apparently. I kept the keys to my office, as the deadline to give them back isn't until July (or something like that) and I may need them once or twice in the interim if I have to go back to campus. I will, eventually, have to go back to campus to pick up my actual diploma anyhow.
So, that afternoon was graduation. Graduation is, by all accounts, a huge pain in the ass. But, it was a pain in the ass that in the end, was worth it (as evidenced by the photo above, and many more that were taken over the course of the day/night).
I'm not a huge fan of gatherings of any sort, which you probably know if you already know me pretty well. I barely leave the house, I don't tend to tolerate crowds well, and noisy or otherwise people-stuffed places make me twitch. I also mentioned before that the only reason I chose to walk and attend graduation at all was because Daisy would be there and would be taking pictures of everything, which she did -- there are a lot of photos she took of all of us, including not only the overall crowd but of our friends and the ceremonial process itself.
The arena was cooler than it was outside (though it was still stuffy, and it was at least 85 outside that day -- totally not the weather to be wearing a long, black gown in), and as we all sat down and listened to the speeches by people none of us had ever met or cared about in the least -- well, I'll take that back -- I have met the dean, who is a pretty cool guy, and the professor who "hooded" all of us is arguably the best literature professor in our department, who is retiring at the end of this semester, and I know him well. Still, all of us sat on folding chairs in the middle of the arena, crushed together in rows, and it was fairly uncomfortable. They'd arranged all of the graduates of different disciplines to sit in certain rows, and the doctoral students went first; all of them went before us. Then the masters of other disciplines, and finally (we were at the back of the group) the Masters of Fine Arts, which is what we were. We'd all get up by rows, and hand the card reader our card with identifying information as we went across the stage. The reader would read our names and degrees, and then we'd turn to face the audience, kneel down, and we'd be hooded. The hood, as mentioned before, is basically a sash that's placed over the head and shoulders and worn like a dorky cape (you can see it in the above photo; it's the gold-and-white thing around my neck). There's a big processional and procedure about it; you're hooded, you shake the hand of the president, then the dean, and then walk off to the other side of the stage. During the walking, there are no less than four photos taken of you: one of you getting hooded, one of you shaking each higher-up's hands, and one of you in front of a backdrop with you holding the fake diploma scroll that is to serve as the "official" graduation photo of sorts. So all of us got up and crossed the stage and did the ceremonial stuff.
Here's the problem, however -- I have a big head. I also have a lot of hair, long hair, as you can see. The graduation cap is ill-fitting on someone with a head my size and with hair as long and thick as mine is. This means that I had a lot of trouble getting it to stay on my head. This also means that as I was hooded by one of my favorite professors and walked across the stage to shake hands with the dean and president, in full view of everyone, my hat got knocked off not once or twice, but three times. I could not keep it on my head, and I didn't have a choice -- I had to keep moving, walking, shaking hands, going through the processes. They'd already called the name after mine, and I couldn't stop; I had to get off the stage. Add to this that the hood, at the same time, started falling to the side, as it's not like it's clipped to the gown or anything when it's put on.
Do you understand the problem here? I was walking across the stage to shake hands with the higher-ups and get my photo taken, in front of a large crowd of not only friends, Daisy, and fellow graduates, but my regalia from the shoulders up was basically falling apart. I thought for sure that my photos would be absolutely terrible when I received the proofs of them. They weren't -- actually, the "official" photo was quite good -- but I was so flustered and somewhat embarrassed by the cap and hood debacle that I don't even remember taking said photo, nor do I really remember shaking the hands of the president and dean -- all I wanted to do was get the fuck off the stage and back into my seat.
"Well, that was eventful," one of my colleagues told me once we sat back down, in reference to my cap and hood debacle.
"Fucking cap and hood," I said. "I hope [Daisy] got some zoomed-in-photos of me crossing the stage, because I'm sure the other ones will be terrible."
I don't know if she got any photos like that or not, actually; if she did, I have not yet seen them. I know she took wide shots of all of us sitting with the other students, but that's all I've seen thus far other than the ones of us together after everything was over.
Of course, after all of us doctoral/master's students were done, we had to sit there another eighty minutes or so while all of the undergrads got their degrees as well. Two former students of mine graduated in this ceremony -- one I had last summer and another in my first year of teaching. I felt proud. There could've been more that I missed, but I was so bored with sitting there while undergrads' names were called that I almost fell asleep.
"You bring your DS with you?" Jay asked me, as if I did we could've been Pokemon battling throughout the wait.
"Shit, no," I replied. "But now I wish I would have."
After the ceremony was (finally) over, we stood for applause, and then were formally ushered out of the arena, with the crowd following after us. All of us English grads met up with our families and Daisy soon after, and went to the alumni association's tent, which had a ton of free food and drinks for graduates and their families. You know me -- I never pass up free food and drinks. That's where the above photo of us was taken (I think either Rae or Jay took it, or one of their family members). They also had a photo booth set up, and Daisy and I took some really sweet pictures together in it -- a copy of which Daisy put on the refrigerator once we got up to Omaha.
We got some stuff to eat and drink and decompressed a bit; I finally got to take off the sweltering hot cap, gown, and hood after Daisy took enough pictures in it, and we let traffic clear out a bit after the ceremony before heading back over to her car. The plan from here was to follow the GPS to where the graduation party was, stopping on the way for beer (if there was a place we could get it, of course). Mind you, however, this was a Friday night in Wichita, on graduation day, at shortly after 5PM, when it was 85 degrees outside. This is why we stuck around the tent a bit longer than we otherwise would have -- I did not want us to have to fight a buttload of idiot drivers to get us out of the city. That would not have been pleasant at all. Everyone else in our little graduating group left for the party before we did.
The events of that party, however? Well, that will be the next post.
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