Are you meant to enjoy your Graduation?

I found the whole thing unbelievably stressful. Does that make it sound a bit like I can’t cope with real life? I can! I can! I promise!

Honestly, listen, I’ve got a job offer and I got a 2:1, I can cope with some aspects of real life. Just apparently not the ones where you’re making a spectacle of yourself. Genuinely, I’ve felt more at ease in exams and interviews. Imagine what I’ll be like if I ever get married; I’ll need to pledge my vows from behind a screen like a vulnerable witness in a court case.

A perceptive friend said that Graduation Days aren’t really for you, they’re for your parents, so that they have an occasion that can represent the fact that all their support has been worthwhile – after twenty-two years of careful rearing, you’ve finally done something to be proud of.

If that’s true – which I think it probably is –  then I just know I was the most bitter disappointment to my mother on that day. She just kept looking at me as if she couldn’t quite believe what she and my Dad had managed to produce. Her expression just seemed to say, “sure, she’s got a degree, but what good is that when she looks like she’s been beaten with a massive ugly stick in that hat?”

I cannot pretend I looked any good in my graduation get-up. I mean, I went through five changes of mortar board before I found one that even vaguely fitted my, apparently, humongous head.  Then it made my hair stick out on one side of my head, so I bore more than a passing resemblance to Hey Arnold!  

 

 

 

Secondly, despite the fact I’d swallowed my pride and ordered the very shortest gown they offered (4’7″ *sniff*) I seemed to have ended up with one that dragged on the floor, meaning it looked more like I’d wrapped myself in a polyester blanket than wearing the robes of academia. It was altogether an unfortunate look.

So, perhaps it was no wonder my mum kept pointing out other graduands who looked more convincing than me, with an element of wistfulness.

Then there’s the hat toss. I am not even a little bit sporting. Not even a bit. I avoid throwing things in mixed company because I give my gender a bad name; not all girls throw like me. Not even all chimps throw like me. But now my lack of ability to throw with any kind of conviction was going to be recorded for the ages. And I was in the front row, and I just knew I was going to be the girl whose hat covered the camera and/or who ended up cowering in fear of the other hats falling on her. Very undignified, either way.

As it turns out, I didn’t completely embarrass myself. But this re-enactment photo beautifully encapsulates just how worried I was.

Happy as Larry, right? You’re probably thinking that whilst the gown is far too long, that doesn’t look like too much an unconvincing throw, I mean, I’m even smiling!

Hang on a minute, though… what happens if we zoom in on my face?

 Then it all becomes apparent and starts to sum up the day beautifully. That is far from a smile, that is a grimace of worry, entirely out of proportion with the occassion. Which as my mother told me “is supposed to be fun.”

Oops.

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