Graduand to Graduate and other forms of grammatical masturbation

So graduation was on Saturday. I got right pissed at the school pub Friday night as part of the "alumni" event that they hosted. My cousin and his wife joined the party and we all had a very good time.

On Saturday, I showed up a bit late for the pre-graduation fitting and things like that. I had planned on showing up late. The inside scoop was that showing up at 1 meant that you'd sit around for 3 hours doing nothing. So I got there just after 2:30 and only had to wait around for 90 minutes. I think graduation is little more than an excuse for people to dress ridiculously and get away with it.

Finally, the ceremony got underway. We all filed in, got our seats, and listened to a variety of dullish speeches. The distribution of "diplomas" probably took the longest amount of time as there were over 60 "graduates". The diploma was a photocopy of a generic business MA with the name "John Doe". I mocked being peeved because I'm not in business. In fact, I spent most of the time mocking the entire proceedings. My professor who was handing out "degrees" whispered to me when I was on stage, "You look like you're really enjoying yourself. Perhaps you could fake it a little better."

Anyway, I didn't mind the ceremony that much and since I didn't go to my college graduation, I suppose it was nice to have the experience and get lots of pics of my friends. I'll post some pictures when I'm at home. The absurd thing, however, and the reason why I put graduates in quotes is that out of roughly 60 graduates, only about 30 actually graduated. The rest of us have one more term to go which is a little odd. Sort of takes some of the sense of accomplishment out of the experience.

After the ceremony, they force all the graduates onto the stage and make them toss their caps while the professional photographer takes pics. Nice to see that there was not even a hint of authenticity in that particular proceeding. I played along, but it wasn't until shortly after that I realized the downside of sticking around for the post-ceremony pics. They had a reception with wine, food, and desserts for all the attendees. Only problem was, by the time the grads actually got there, all the desserts were gone. The food wasn't great to begin with, so I was a bit peeved by that. All I wanted was some cake. I had to settle for finger food and wine.

The group that I normally hangout with all stuck around and killed the wine. Needless to say, we got fairly pissed. Then we headed to the pub. Fittingly, we went to the Volunteer which is the first pub I went to with school mates. My cousins met us up there for some drinks. Real World showed up as well with her 50-year old Aunt and a family friend in her 60's. They got completely hammered on Rum and Coke's. Things were getting out of hand when some random guy at the pub (who was maybe 21) started dancing with the 60ish woman and eventually started making out with her. It was freaking nasty. In fact, I think I just threw up in my mouth remembering the episode.

Later, the group was headed to a posh club, so I made a split decision to go along. I don't normally go with them to those clubs because they cost too much money and I never meet people there, but I was feeling in a celebratory spirit, so I decided to go. (My cousins wisely opted out.) Before we left, Real World met a group of young American girls and got them to come along. One of them was insanely cute so I chatted her up on the way. When we got there, the guy at the door is one of my mates so he let us in directly, but not before saying, "you can get in, but not those girls." Apparently, they didn't meet the dress code. Not caring too much, I waved at them, said something like, "see you on the inside" and went in. Yes, I'm a bastard but what the hell were they doing following a random group of people to a posh club in central London dressed in hoodies and jeans?

The club was fairly nice. I didn't have to spend much money because I was already "well oiled". There were a ton of people from school there which was cool. Some of those people I will never see again as they're returning to their home countries for good in a matter of days. I did happen to chat up some nice ladies, but in typical fashion, I was barking up the wrong trees. One woman chatted with me for a good 20 minutes before turning to this really old guy (as in 60ish) and said, "let me introduce you to my husband." That was certainly odd. It isn't every day that you meet a 30ish woman with a husband about twice her age. Later, I was chatting with a really cute Scottish woman and after about 15 minutes she said, "let me introduce you to my boyfriend." At that point I just said screw it and hung out with my friends. Most of the women in a posh club are the snobbish type anyway, so I wasn't terribly interested in wasting time or money on them.
On Sunday, I met up my cousins for lunch. As I was in from the club at 4 am that morning and was out of bed by 11:30, the day was an endurance contest for me. I was more tired than anything, but somehow managed to survive it. I attribute that to my German-Irish heritage which is finally good for something.

Anyway, my cousin was in the Air Force for awhile and has some Air Force buddies living outside of London. They came down and met us up for the afternoon. It was interesting to hear their perspective about living in the UK. It was very different from mine. I'm much more immersed in the culture because I live in London, I work in a British company, and I don't hang out with very many Americans. They're tied to a bit of America as they work on a US air base and mainly interact with Americans. Having been a Navy brat, I prefer immersing myself in the culture. The experience just seems that much more authentic, but I suppose they don't have much of a choice in the matter. Nice guys though.

Anyway, after lunch we walked up to Hyde Park. It was a lazy Sunday and we spent a good bit of time looking at paintings. Every Sunday, area artists go to Hyde Park and hock their wares. Everything's a bit too expensive for my scholastic salary, but it was fun. We found a great pub at one point. It had an upstairs balcony fully immersed in glorious sunlight. We had no choice but to stop in for a drink. Seeking a "British" experience, I had a Pimms and Lemonade which is difficult to describe, but is akin to an alcoholic's ice tea and is what the Brits drink in the summertime to cool off in the heat. (Never mind that it doesn't get truly hot here.) For reasons I couldn't quite comprehend, the bartender filled about half the glass with Pimms instead of the quarter glass that is normal, so the drink was much stronger than I prefer, but it was still drinkable. (I think it had something to do with my penchant to reply to every query with "yes". Like when she asked if I wanted a double shot "even though we have 50ml shots here". 25ml is the normal size.)

Later, the Air Force crew had to head back up North. But it was still awesome outside, so my cousins and I went back to the park and laid out in the sun and relaxed. Several hours of soaking up the sun later and we were hungry again. Traditionally, Sundays in the UK are the day of the "roast". Every pub has a Sunday roast and we decided to try that out. It's basically like Sunday brunch in the US except that this is just dinner so your choices are more limited. The place we chose ended up only having roast beef and chicken (sadly they were out of the pork and lamb), so we settled on chicken. It was quite good.

The other thing about the meal was that it revealed a secret of British cuisine that was previously undiscovered. The meal came with something called "Yorkshire pudding", which we assumed was some kind of pudding type dessert. I mean, it says "pudding" in the name and it was at the end of the menu where you would normally put a dessert. Apparently, however, Yorkshire pudding is what we Americans would call a "pop over". Here's an odd sort of link that has a pic and what I can only imagine is supposed to be an ode to the Yorkshire Pudding. I really don't understand why they can't speak a proper sort of English over here.

Finally, when I got home last night, I managed to watch this independent and free Star Wars movie called Star Wars: Revelations. I don't know if anyone has heard of it before but I read about it in Slate. It's totally cool. They shot it in the DC area on a budget of about $20,000 and did the video animation over the internet. By that, I mean there were literally thousands of fans around the world that contributed programming help and things like that. It's totally awesome. Unfortunately, it's only 40 minutes long, but it's easily better than Episode I or II. You can watch it online here.