digital & analogue

[kaberett]

This evening I have been attempting to order robes for graduation. Graduation is going to be on the third of May, at the Royal Albert Hall. Some time ago, I came to the conclusion that I really do want the Ritual and Ceremony to make it all feel a bit more real, because my thesis submission was digital and my viva was digital and my corrections were digital and none of it quite felt real. The sheer implausibility of my corrections all being voluntary did not help this sense.

(I say "Some time ago, I came to the conclusion": you will be shocked to hear that there was a lot of subsequent dithering, but when the deadline came I did actually book.)

Part of the amusement is that the ceremony itself is entirely theatrical: unlike my other degrees I did not need to participate in this performance, either in person or in absentia, in order to have the doctorate conferred. It was all made official on the first of October in, good grief, 2021. It is a frippery, and I am amused that it is indulging in the frippery that I am choosing to use as a waymarker.

The other bit of the amusement is the fact that a requirement of booking my gown & hood is providing a copy of my degree certificate.

And it was only at this point -- the preparation for the culmination of this process I started pretty close to bang on a decade ago, if we take into account when I interviewed -- that it dawned on me that my degree certificate is the one part of this entire rigmarole that has, from my perspective, only ever been purely analogue.

Which is how I found myself taking a digital photograph of a piece of physical paper in order to complete my online booking for the event at which I am going to walk unnecessarily across a stage for the purpose of making more concrete in my own head the fact that a huge quantity of digital work constituted the completion of my Doktorarbeit.

(And then, of course, the Ede & Ravenscroft online form Did Not Work, so tomorrow I get to phone them. WHAT, I ask you, is the point! of a digital age! if I still have to TALK TO PEOPLE on the TELEPHONE using my FACE NOISES! But this, too, feels like a fittingly drawn-out conclusion...)

Comments

Daylight Robery

[hairyears]

The whole point of graduation ceremonies is to make The Thing feel real...

And to circulate money in the real economy, via photographers and costumiers.


Cynical, me?


Nevertheless, the graduation photo of a thoroughly Doctored Alex is a memento that you and people close to you will treasure.

Also: you look fabulous in peculiar headgear.

[ewt]

I've decided I do not want the hassle of travel to Aberdeen to walk across a stage to get my MPhil. However, I do still want the gown and hood, for legitimate choral and church reasons.

I forsee difficulty, and really ought to send some emails about it.

[simont]

That's confusing – you're graduating on my birthday! We'll have to remember to wish each other happy completely-different-things. :-)

[sfred]

I hope the ritual does what it needs to do!

[lunabee34]

Pomp and circumstance, baby! Enjoy the ritual. <3

[oracne]

Hooray for frippery!

[silveradept]

The ritual is an important thing, Doctor, and it's one of the few opportunities we ever have in life for full academic dress.

[pipisafoat]

Hooray for ritual and ceremony, really! In several contexts.

Also, at "FACE NOISES" I completely lost my shit and laughed so hard I nearly forgot how to breathe. Face noises indeed.

-Wolf (sa/they)

[shannnon_foraker]

Congratulations, Dr Kaberett! What is your PhD in? Geology? Volcanos? (I'm trying to tell from your DW).

[shannnon_foraker]

Update: I poked around at older blog posts.