Categories: uncategorized
Date: 08 October 2008 15:22:44
One thing I am learning here is that it is a good thing if you can mix a healthy level of cynicism with an appreciation of the induction process and culture of the uni. Today was the perfect example of that as we had our college photo before wandering off, as a college, to the cathedral for our matriculation.
It was a day for dressing up and whilst some of the colleges encouraged their students to wear gowns my college went for the smart dress approach. In reality this meant that most of the home students were in funeral / interview attire, whilst the foreign students took the slightly more colourful approach. Top tip for this type of occassion was given by the person who was wearing heels for the formal bits but had her flip flops in her handbag to throw on for walking between places, on the cobbles.
The college photo was one of those events I never wish to repeat. In a large part this was due to my fear of heights and paranoia about tripping / falling on unstable structures being combined with being placed in the second row from the back and thus being quite high up on a tiered metal platform with nothing to hold on to. Thankfully I had stopped feeling too freaked out by the time they got around to taking the photo and so the grimice on my face had mutated into a look that was trying to force a smile against the odds.
Then the matriculation, which was basically like having a grown up school assembly in the cathedral, but without the hymns and prayers. The English were noticeable by our failiure to even bother with the polite applause in places and also by the way we were mixing our attempts to treat it as ironic with a sense of pride of being part of this circus. The Chinese on the other hand seemed much more able to appreciate it all, openly.
At the end of the day I know most of the stuff being said and done is fluff, and increasingly marketing fluff but it is kind of fun and is making me feel good that I'm here. What is interesting, compared to other institutions I've been at is the emphasis on not just being there to get the qualification, although that must remain our primary focus, but the importance of engaging in the whole experience and using that to develop our time management and social skills.
As you can tell yet again I've been enjoying the experience of being a gereatric fresher.