Diary of an up and coming sociopath

Well, I guess that’s university officially over with. For now. Slightly more immediately relevant was the partial success of sorting out our house forms. It’s pretty late and I got up early, so this is one of those blog entries which isn’t going to be very funny, and is going to be very long, rambly and meandering. Just don’t say I didn’t warn you.

I ended up going to bed later than I expected last night, because I was trying to set up my modem to receive a fax. I more or less had it set up, or at least, as much as I could, and I worked out a contingency plan in case that didn’t work.

In the morning, i conferred with ian, and we discovered that one of the credit checks had failed for the house. Initially, we though it was my mum, but it later turned out that no-one had failed, but Ian’s mum’s workplace had not returned the correct information, which lead to the agency’s mystic calculations somehow going awry and somehow implicating my mum. Once that was sorted, we gave them a pair of numbers to fax the forms to, and departed to get graduated.

First I went up to Dad’s with mum, and we then went to Oxford in Dad’s car, which he is about to sell and replace with a BMW X5. That doesn’t mean a lot to me, but it has satellite navigation which turns into a TV when the car is stationary, and that’s enough to make me think it’s pretty cool. I wonder if you could get Sky on it. While in the car, I received a call from a Job agency which I had given up trying to contact after they kept claiming the person I wanted wasn’t there, and my calls went unreturned. I was asked “Is this a good time to talk?” and the only answer I coudl think of, was “No, not really.” what with being in the car and being unable to realy hear what was going on. At least that avenue’s back open to me, I guess.

When we went past the house in Oxford, some of the furnature was stacked outside and the front door was open. I guess that means they’re doing some kind of work on it. Doesn’t appear to be anyone living there, though. Seems almost a lifetime away after only a month, really. I often find it strange to think that I will never again be in that building. Indeed, today my memory of it, of wheatley, are clear as day, but I guess over time they’ll fade. If all goes well, tomorrow I’ll have a new building to situate in.

We parked at the top of morrell Avenue, abusing the guest permits I had left over to ensure we could park near to the Uni. I’m not too sure what we’d have done had it been, say, raining. When we got there I dragged my parents to the Gibbs building, which was previously functioned as the source of £5 notes and which famously has 8 floors, but only 4 storeys. You cannot get between odd and even numbered floors without returning to the ground first. Inside there was a big room where we could collect tickets based on our surnames, only not until 12 o’clock. This meant I instead went to face the gruelling ordeal of getting my gown put on. They were quite heavy, and really hot, especially on a sunny day, and that’s about where the confort began and ended. Had it been a cold day, I would’ve been grateful for such sack-like coverings.

I wandered around in that state for the rest of the day, and spent the next, say, 30-40 minutes being repeatedly photographed and, for the love of god, filmed. This is the kind of thing you’re not going to be seeing, if I can help it. I’d estimate there are about 15-20 photos of me in various places, and standing with various combinations of parent (including a couple of all 3 of us, thans to a helpul passing asian girl who seemed confused by our cameras.) We were then able to get the tickets, and while waiting I witnessed a scottish girl driven to tears by the knowledge that she was going to be the first person from her group to be called up. With my tickets procured, Dad and I went to get some coffe and met mum back outside on one of the benches outside Galliano’s. A fitting venue to finsh the University experience, since it was also one of the first places I remember meeting with George and Ian.

Ian and his present family later joined us there for the ceremony, and we all sat around looking stupid. I may have remarked at one point that “This is the stupidest we’re ever going to look.” and at least my parents found that to be highly amusing, and quite untrue. I wonder what they know that I don’t…

Eventually the time came for judgement, and we headed to the main hall. Dad and I found my name on the £10 Graduation T-Shirts which contained the names of everyone graduating that day. It was great. Blue print, tiny writing. “JR Hunt.” is ssaid, in ALLCAPS Arial. How proud I felt to think that some real chumps are walking around with my name emblazoned on their total scam of a t-shirt.

And so, the time for the ceremony arrived. I was delighted to find I was sitting next to George, which made the ceremony far more bearable. When there’s someone you can talk to during the boring parts, it makes lectures go much quicker, and I imagined that it’d be the same for this. Ian was, unfortunately, stuck off by himself not able to join in with our sarcasm and general sniggers of disbelief, so During the opening speech where some woman included the phrase “Our watch-word is Relevance.” I was content to remain sure that ian was, in his absence, clearly laughing at the stupidity of that sentence as hard as I was. Inside. At one point we were encouraged to spread throughout the world with the “Brookes Brand” behind us. Universities are pretty corporate these days, I’m finding. Soon we won’t be students, but ‘Clients’ At one point we received a message from the head of the university, Jon Snow. i’m not sure how he got into that position, but rest assured it wasn’t his dedication to turning up to congratulate the graduates, for we received the briefest of video messages only. As Paul put it:

[paul] “I’m very sorry I couldn’t be there today, but I have far more important things to do. Like being TV’s Jon Snow.”
[paul] “I would like to take this opportunity to wish you all the best for the rest of 1997 and the future.”

Uncannily accurate. You know, he didn’t mention the year. It could’ve been recorded at any point in the past.

Once the initial speeches were done with, our subjects and names were read out, and we received a firm handshake from someone who was either the head of the school of technology, or the deputy vice-chancellor. Or possibly the relief deputy vice-chancellor’s intern, I don’t know. I had wondered if Graham Upton, the vice-chancellor himself woudl appear. It would’ve been slightly hypocritical to accept a handshake off him, when I once attended a meeting for, and voted in favour of no-confidence in his dubious administration, particularly the switch to Semesters. I won’t go into the details, but suffice to say as I understand things, he ran a University into the ground, they fired him, and he was hired at Brookes, where he plans to implement the same changes that ruined the last place. The students were consulted on semesters, but when they voted against them, it turned out that we were being actually asked, so much as it being given the chance to agree before we were overruled. Students leave after a few years, you see, and can be replaced by new ones unaware of how the semesterisation has more or less ruined a previously decent modular program.

Anyway. He wasn’t there, so I receveid my handshake, and sat down again, and that’s all there was to it. We were then given a speech by a nerd who had more honorary qualifications than real ones, and who was giving us a speech because we’d added another fake doctorate to his pile. Then, it was more or less over. I got a few more photos, returned my extortionate gown, and then we set off back home. Dad took us for some food on the way back, which was nice, if overpriced, though for some reason my chciken came with a sausage in bacon, which I’d always thought was only served at Christmas. I konw we’re close, but not that close, surely. When we got back it was just beginning to reall chuck it down with rain, so there was a mad scramble to get into Mum’s car with all the correct stuff, and then I came back here to try and sort out the forms.

My Faxing-to-modem idea didn’t really pan out. I could get the modem to answer the phone, just not receive the fax. My other plan, to fax the form to Terry, didn’t work either, because his machine never received it. I was fast running out of ways to get the form before Tuesday, and I’ll be damned if I was going to be the reason things got held up yet again. With time becoming a critical issue, I phoned up dad and got him to plug in his fax machine there, and then got on the phone to the agecny. By the time I called Dad back up to check it was okay, the fax was already receiving, which saved my ass. If Ian can get his form tomorrow, and Josh and Al their monies, we’re all set for a Tuesday move in. Finally, the end is near.