Graduation

Considering that it's been ten months since the 2012 MA cohort turned in our dissertations, raised our glasses, and (for the most part) got the hell out of Norwich as fast as possible, it's a little difficult for me to grasp the idea that tomorrow those of us that can be bothered to haul butt up here will collect diplomas. While my undergraduate graduation was a week-long carnival of pomp and circumstance, interspersed with evenings of wine and sobbing, this one looks like it's going to be an efficient exercise in people shuffling, with the briefest possible interlude at the end for cheap wine and nibbles. And I'm having a hard time getting worked up about it since, unlike finishing undergrad, nothing about life is going to change afterwards. Right now it feels like an unwelcome blip in routine that will require me to actually put on clothes in the morning and talk to people, and I know that during any speeches I'll be thinking about all the lovely lovely primary sources that showed up on my doorstep the other day that I could be cataloguing. 

There are so many books in there that they just gave me the post bag. And instead of reading them I have to wear triple layers in July and make nice to people.

An aside: the robes. I love academic robes. I was quite irked to find that our robes will be blue. A rather bright shade of blue. Academic robes are not supposed to be blue. I'm hoping that, despite the color, they will be proper Masters robes, which have lovely deep pockets sewn into the sleeves, traditionally so that one could store one's books in them. Should they be, as I highly suspect they will, mere Bachelors robes, sans hanging sleeves and accompanying pockets, I may be cross enough to say something. 

Feelings about graduations aside, with hindsight I can say that I'm very glad that I did the Masters, I'm very glad that I survived the Masters, and that I'm very glad that I didn't know the reputation of the program or the city before I came across. To elaborate backwards: Norwich is miserable in the winter and provincial all year round, but it's a good place to be when one's purpose is work. Now that I'm on the mend (I'm not joking when I say senior year nearly killed me) I realise how ill I was for a majority of the program, and I wish I had been in better nick so I could have gotten more out of it - but being not well kept me in my room a lot and led to a lot of work getting done, so I really can't complain. It's pure chance that I picked UEA; I was looking for a stepping stone to a PhD, and didn't have any idea of the reputation of the program or the kind of people that would be enrolled with me. It was at times difficult, frustrating, and lonely, but on the whole it was a good thing. I learned a lot technically and professionally, and came out the end of it with a novel and lots of contacts without losing my sanity. 

Now if only I could key myself up to put on a dress tomorrow.