Graduation

Tomorrow I graduate.

And given how abstract the whole thing is at the moment, I almost feel like I'm suddenly going to fade off beautifully from head to toe rather than take part in any kind of ceremony.

Honestly, the whole thing's rather intimidating.  To get to this do (in the middle of London) we need to travel today and stay overnight.  Deb managed to find us an appropaite hotel (appropriate means relatively cheap in these circumstances) and then tomorrow morning we're off so that I can be wheeled in front of someone to recieve a bit of paper.

And yet there is a part of me which thinks these kind of dos are important and something I've not really had much of in the past.

It's a bit like birthday parties (likewise something I've not much experience of) - people gather to celebrate what you've achieved.  Because birthdays are less about a passage of time and more about what you've become or are becoming.

My degree is a funny thing.  Given my inability to work, there's a part of me which thinks of any formal education as a waste of money.  But this is obviously rubbish.  The extreme result of thinking like that is that any poorly kid should be excluded from school for money reasons (something which looks more and more likely given the way that the disabled as being treated in this country).

And yet the degree is one of the very best things I've ever done.  I worked very hard at it, felt that massive rush and excitement as I understood and even expanded upon the ideas of countless academics before me.

And the great thing is that with a classics degree, you're left with knowledge that can lead you through almost any situation.  Even a graduation.

The only problem is, I can't think of anyone at the moment other than Petronius who, when ordered to commit suicide by Nero did so by cutting his wrists.  But then promptly bound them up so that he could spend the evening partying and writing out a list of all Nero's perversions before letting the bandages loose.

So rather than anything quite so drastic, here's my way of getting through graduation.  Photographic proof that I have a brain.