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i can never have just one tiring thing at a time, can i.
friday: picked up bro and FSIL at the airport within five minutes of their scheduled arrival time. hit the road for the 2.5-hour drive, which took 3.5 hours. rar. arrived at the bookstore with a little less than an hour left in which to pick up tickets for graduation (three per student; i have four family members coming in, but TOO BAD!), as well as regalia.
my name is not on the list.
now, this doesn't mean that as far as they're concerned i'm not graduating. in fact, i did graduate, four months ago, and i have my diploma, so the question of getting the degree is not to be worried over. but as far as they're concerned i'm not there for the weekend, so the fact that my parents are driving down (7+ hours) and my brother and his fiancee have flown in from boston isn't enough to convince them that i am, in fact, participating incommencement final exercises. they can give me tickets, but only if they get the say-so from my department.
two problems with this: (a) it's now 6:30 on a friday, so university-wide there's approximately nobody home in their offices; and (b) there is no linguistics department.
we traipse to a few offices to confirm (a), and then light on the idea of following (b) to its logical conclusion, that being, there's a linguistics program, the director of which lists his home number in the directory and encourages students to call him at any reasonable hour. explain situation to him, he calls bookstore while we are traipsing back, it's 6:55 but i have the tickets, the cap, the gown, and the hood, and we're off to meet the 'rents for dinner. dinner, check-in, etc. -- done with friday.
saturday: up early; went with mom to fetch breakfast back for everyone. wandered around a few offices (all closed) trying to rustle up a fourth ticket for sunday's ceremony. this having failed, we went downtown, had lunch, saw troy. none of us hated it, although the Issues were several. precisely the issues i imagine you have, if you've seen the film, and if you haven't seen it, you know how i feel about spoilers, so i shall go into no detail. except to say that the dialogue was one of them. ack, ack. ack.
dinner, home, sitting around and talking. lots of talk about the logistics of moving, a subject i hate (both doing and talking about). bro and FSIL are moving out of their current place at the end of june and into a new place at the beginning of august. this will require some maneuvering. i am moving out of this place in the middle of september, and they are taking my car and some of my furniture. how it's going to get there, what among the rest of my stuff can be got rid of, whether the rest of the rest of my stuff will fit in my parents' house and thus whether a storage locker can be avoided -- a conversation guaranteed to make me tense and irritable. i finally called it off for the duration of the weekend. sleep, early morning to follow.
oh! yes, saturday was my birthday. my dad started singing every couple of hours, and kept asking me if he could tell waiters it was my birthday (he'd asked this on friday too). fortunately, "i wish you wouldn't" held him off. he was disappointed, but i was really okay with that. bro and FSIL gave me a book called "dare to repair", with rosie the riveter on the cover, that ought to make me a shade less right-brained when it comes to fixing things in the house. (of course, for christmas they gave me a cookbook, and it hasn't made me any less right-brained in the kitchen.) generally a good day, even though it was too hot and muggy and pollen-laden for decent human consumption.
sunday: up at christ o'clock so we could all get showered and ready to go in time to get to breakfast in time to get away from breakfast for the line-up before the processional. you know how graduation days get. we still only have three tickets at this point, but that doesn't really matter, because it's raining -- not enough that the thing will be moved indoors, but enough that even my mother (the die-hard devotee of outdoor attendance) was happier to head to the Remote Viewing Location and see the thing in air-conditioned, element-free comfort on closed-circuit television. sat with the fam for a little bit before it was time to head out and Assemble. it had stopped raining by the time i went outside, and the sun was out making the whole place a steam bath by the time i got to the meeting point. choked on the hood, let the gown hang off my shoulders, didn't put the cap on until absolutely necessary. processed at the front of the mob, two columns of arts & sciences next to two columns of law next to two columns of medicine next to two columns of business. education was behind us, architecture behind law, nursing and engineering behind the others -- the second group of four had undergrads, which was why they came in behind. undergrad arts & sciences behind them, coming in twelve across, and it took them forever. the faculty were last, but after the undergrads, they seemed to be flying -- the entire procession took an hour, for most of which i was on my feet waiting for it to end (because i am both sentimental and stubborn as all hell, and didn't want to sit down because somewhere in my head i have the idea that that's Not Done). wearing a nylon-poly blend in the steam heat. at least i was under a tree, which was not the case last time i graduated -- and it wasn't quite as hot this time, either.
anyway. speaker speaker speaker, degrees conferred, yay (highlight 1 -- dean of the school of law: "will the candidates for the degree of doctor of juridical science please rise." a whole mess of people stand up. dean: "no, now, this isn't right." pause. "we're starting at the top. doctor of juridical -- there you go." all but two people sit down. bless their hearts, some of them stood up again thirty seconds later when he invited the candidates for the MLL to stand -- and sat down immediately. those crazy JD's. a little anxious, they were. highlight 2 -- when the degrees were conferred on the nursing school students, the recently-graduated medical students stood up and applauded. i appreciated the class that showed).
managed to find room for diploma ceremony, in which i received a rolled-up piece of paper and a(nother) copy of the cambridge encyclopedia of language. publicly announced oxford plans, to general noises of being-impressed. got some lunch and went back room-ward, to rest. napped for three and a half hours. dinner, ice cream, back to room again, chatting, sleep. so tired.
monday: up early, again. went with mom to fetch breakfast, again. packed up cars. interesting side point: it took two trips to get my stuff down to my car, only because one thing i needed to pack was a box fan that was too bulky to be carried at the same time as a suitcase. to load my parents' car took five or six trips, because damn, the people bring so much crap! and so un-contained! oy. drove back up with bro and FSIL, dropped them at airport, returned home, have been catching up on backlog.
backlog contains many birthday wishes, for which much thanks. :-) it also contains a prezzie from![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ellen_fremedon, which i will read just as soon as i post this, as i'm counting on it to bring me out of the funk caused by (a) total exhaustion and (b) frustrating depressing bad news in RPG-land (which, in turn, i'm sure would be less frustrating and depressing if it weren't for (a)).
friday: picked up bro and FSIL at the airport within five minutes of their scheduled arrival time. hit the road for the 2.5-hour drive, which took 3.5 hours. rar. arrived at the bookstore with a little less than an hour left in which to pick up tickets for graduation (three per student; i have four family members coming in, but TOO BAD!), as well as regalia.
my name is not on the list.
now, this doesn't mean that as far as they're concerned i'm not graduating. in fact, i did graduate, four months ago, and i have my diploma, so the question of getting the degree is not to be worried over. but as far as they're concerned i'm not there for the weekend, so the fact that my parents are driving down (7+ hours) and my brother and his fiancee have flown in from boston isn't enough to convince them that i am, in fact, participating in
two problems with this: (a) it's now 6:30 on a friday, so university-wide there's approximately nobody home in their offices; and (b) there is no linguistics department.
we traipse to a few offices to confirm (a), and then light on the idea of following (b) to its logical conclusion, that being, there's a linguistics program, the director of which lists his home number in the directory and encourages students to call him at any reasonable hour. explain situation to him, he calls bookstore while we are traipsing back, it's 6:55 but i have the tickets, the cap, the gown, and the hood, and we're off to meet the 'rents for dinner. dinner, check-in, etc. -- done with friday.
saturday: up early; went with mom to fetch breakfast back for everyone. wandered around a few offices (all closed) trying to rustle up a fourth ticket for sunday's ceremony. this having failed, we went downtown, had lunch, saw troy. none of us hated it, although the Issues were several. precisely the issues i imagine you have, if you've seen the film, and if you haven't seen it, you know how i feel about spoilers, so i shall go into no detail. except to say that the dialogue was one of them. ack, ack. ack.
dinner, home, sitting around and talking. lots of talk about the logistics of moving, a subject i hate (both doing and talking about). bro and FSIL are moving out of their current place at the end of june and into a new place at the beginning of august. this will require some maneuvering. i am moving out of this place in the middle of september, and they are taking my car and some of my furniture. how it's going to get there, what among the rest of my stuff can be got rid of, whether the rest of the rest of my stuff will fit in my parents' house and thus whether a storage locker can be avoided -- a conversation guaranteed to make me tense and irritable. i finally called it off for the duration of the weekend. sleep, early morning to follow.
oh! yes, saturday was my birthday. my dad started singing every couple of hours, and kept asking me if he could tell waiters it was my birthday (he'd asked this on friday too). fortunately, "i wish you wouldn't" held him off. he was disappointed, but i was really okay with that. bro and FSIL gave me a book called "dare to repair", with rosie the riveter on the cover, that ought to make me a shade less right-brained when it comes to fixing things in the house. (of course, for christmas they gave me a cookbook, and it hasn't made me any less right-brained in the kitchen.) generally a good day, even though it was too hot and muggy and pollen-laden for decent human consumption.
sunday: up at christ o'clock so we could all get showered and ready to go in time to get to breakfast in time to get away from breakfast for the line-up before the processional. you know how graduation days get. we still only have three tickets at this point, but that doesn't really matter, because it's raining -- not enough that the thing will be moved indoors, but enough that even my mother (the die-hard devotee of outdoor attendance) was happier to head to the Remote Viewing Location and see the thing in air-conditioned, element-free comfort on closed-circuit television. sat with the fam for a little bit before it was time to head out and Assemble. it had stopped raining by the time i went outside, and the sun was out making the whole place a steam bath by the time i got to the meeting point. choked on the hood, let the gown hang off my shoulders, didn't put the cap on until absolutely necessary. processed at the front of the mob, two columns of arts & sciences next to two columns of law next to two columns of medicine next to two columns of business. education was behind us, architecture behind law, nursing and engineering behind the others -- the second group of four had undergrads, which was why they came in behind. undergrad arts & sciences behind them, coming in twelve across, and it took them forever. the faculty were last, but after the undergrads, they seemed to be flying -- the entire procession took an hour, for most of which i was on my feet waiting for it to end (because i am both sentimental and stubborn as all hell, and didn't want to sit down because somewhere in my head i have the idea that that's Not Done). wearing a nylon-poly blend in the steam heat. at least i was under a tree, which was not the case last time i graduated -- and it wasn't quite as hot this time, either.
anyway. speaker speaker speaker, degrees conferred, yay (highlight 1 -- dean of the school of law: "will the candidates for the degree of doctor of juridical science please rise." a whole mess of people stand up. dean: "no, now, this isn't right." pause. "we're starting at the top. doctor of juridical -- there you go." all but two people sit down. bless their hearts, some of them stood up again thirty seconds later when he invited the candidates for the MLL to stand -- and sat down immediately. those crazy JD's. a little anxious, they were. highlight 2 -- when the degrees were conferred on the nursing school students, the recently-graduated medical students stood up and applauded. i appreciated the class that showed).
managed to find room for diploma ceremony, in which i received a rolled-up piece of paper and a(nother) copy of the cambridge encyclopedia of language. publicly announced oxford plans, to general noises of being-impressed. got some lunch and went back room-ward, to rest. napped for three and a half hours. dinner, ice cream, back to room again, chatting, sleep. so tired.
monday: up early, again. went with mom to fetch breakfast, again. packed up cars. interesting side point: it took two trips to get my stuff down to my car, only because one thing i needed to pack was a box fan that was too bulky to be carried at the same time as a suitcase. to load my parents' car took five or six trips, because damn, the people bring so much crap! and so un-contained! oy. drove back up with bro and FSIL, dropped them at airport, returned home, have been catching up on backlog.
backlog contains many birthday wishes, for which much thanks. :-) it also contains a prezzie from
ellen_fremedon, which i will read just as soon as i post this, as i'm counting on it to bring me out of the funk caused by (a) total exhaustion and (b) frustrating depressing bad news in RPG-land (which, in turn, i'm sure would be less frustrating and depressing if it weren't for (a)).