I've been getting awfully lazy with these blog updates haven't I? Bad Seraph, Bad, Bad Seraph!
Anyway, it's mainly because I keep getting lost in various events occuring elswhere online, like message boards and MSN messenger conversations and by the time I have concluded the best part of those I'm too tired to care about what happened to me. Knowing that hardly anyone is reading this isn't a great incentive either, but hey, I promised more details about Thursday, so here they are:
Thursday was, as has perhaps already been said, an odd day. I went in to Uni first to take part in a class photo (something I wasn't all that sure I really wanted to be part of), but for some reason was running a hour ahead of schedule so found myself reading message boards and chatting on MSN (as usual) whilst various members of my 'class' drifted in to the computer room to join me. We chatted, then we went to get our picture taken and waited about half an hour standing around like moron whilst the external examiners (who for some reason were to be part of the picture as well - ???) finished their lunch. We of course had had no such luxuries and were desperate to allieviate our hunger. Fortunately by about half 2 (the photo was supposed to be over by 2 at the latest) we were free to do just that, so we bought ourselves some slightly overpriced Ginster's sandwiches and wraps and sat in the Cruickshank botanic gardens enjoying the weather, the banter and fearing our soon-to-be-determined fates.
This too was (bien sur) delayed by the external examiner's luncheon, but by twenty to five we were being called into the Zoology Building's crowded foyer to be handed an ominous looking envelope.
I received mine after a friend who had wanted to get into Vetinary College but was pretty certain she wouldn't get the required 2-1. As I took my envelope I saw her crying into her boyfriend's shoulder. I was distraught. Could it really be that bad? I clutched my envelope in concern. Then I saw her jump up and down, still crying hysterically and I began to get confused. Was this good? Bad? Buh?
Fearing the consequences of speaking to her just yet I took myself aside and opened my envelope, pulling out the first piece of paper within.
"Cheese and Wine!?"
Aha, wrong piece of paper. instead of the one telling me how I would fare in the world of graduates, this was one saying that we were all invited to enjoy the above perishables in the cruickshank gardens before our graduation with the usual parental units. I put it back in the envelope and took out the next sheet. This one was made of better paper and looked both reassuringly and ominously official.
Degree Classification: Lower 2nd Class
After a few seconds of translating this into soemthing I could actually udnerstand I nodded, accepted my fate and wandered aimlessly towards people I knew. In truth I was a little bewildered. A 2-2 was the very best I had been expecting, but I couldn't really say I had been hoping for it. I had trained myself in apathy so well that when I finally received the result, I just didn't care, but everyone around me was exploding with emotion and here I was, a little island of confusion and silence.
I met up with another classmate who informed me that he too had recieved a 2-2, so I was somewhat relieved that I wasn't alone in this category, and then I went over to the Vetinary wannabe and discovered that she had managed a 2-1 after all and my confusion became further complicated by the immense feelings of pride and joy for her, contrasting bizarrely with my internal mutedness.
Eventually we went back out to the gardens and I rang my mother. A Transcript of the covnersation would appear thusly:
ME: I GOT A 2-2.
MOTHER: Huh?
ME: IT MEANS I PASSED, IT'S GOOD!
MOTHER: OH? SO HAVE YOU FOUND A FLAT YET?
You've gotta love the down-to-earth pragmatism of a parent, right?
Next there was chapagne. Generally I don't drink. I don't really like alcohol and I don't want to get drunk, but I like champagne and I don't begrudge a little celebration, so champagne there was and I drank it. 2 glasses to be precise. Which is alot for me, although not alot in the sense that it was intoxicating, especially since the stuff we were drinking was so cheap as to possibly not have any real alcohol in it, still...
Afterwards we went to someone's house for pizza, snacks and more champagne (just one more glass, and about 3 hours after the first two, so again no danger of drunkenness for me - less could be said for some of the others) and I came to realise that my one regret for my four years at uni is not, as I thought it might be, not working hard enough to achieve the 1st I possibly could have achieved, but is in fact not getting to know my classmates as well as they deserved. My usual outsider attitude has done them a disservice. Still, there's a while before graduation and we plan to do a few other things by then, so that'll be fun.
Now for today: I have work, then I have to dress up as Captain Hook. I live a very odd definition of life, don't I?
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