convocation revelation ish.ii

The Ceremony

Weary eyed forced entry into a world of buzzing parents and gowns that fall just short enough to make those trying to pull off shorts underneath seem unprepared and dirty (Herzoglove), I awake a half hour into the process of convocation Monday. Its the 280something convocation of the University of Western Ontario, and the first time in four years that the administration buries your sequential identity for the value of your given name and a future percentage of your annual revenue as a new member of the oh'so valued alumna.

Paraded through the scorching halls you don't lose the self-conscious image of your druid looking self until the festival of established dignitaries parades in looking like a scene scripted by Rowling. A colour palette which compares only to the Olympics and caps that make the security at the Vatican look tough, parade behind a giant mace to the sound of a full brass orchestra on stage.

It is at this point that you realize the seriousness of your being present at this event. Only 200,000 have passed through UWO and only 1% of the global population receives a university degree. While you can argue the value of wealth in the whole process, my thirty thousand dollar hole has me saying the only thing that warrants a university degree is opportunity and effort, which I humbly admit I have been afforded often and pursued respectively.

As is documented, I presumed the ceremony to be full of hoots and hollas, outrageous screams for the peers who I never thought would make it, or just would feel embarrassed being singled out. But from the reading of the first name, the urge to cheer out the name stopped in the humble atmosphere and extensive ceremonial procedure that singled out individuals for the rarity that this moment provided. Only 200,000 have knelt where my peers and I knelt that day, and for that reason the risk of cheering over someone else's name in place of my friends admiration just did not seem appropriate.

Needless to say, I was swept up in the moment and felt pride for that which I have grown to know as myself. Though not solely, I think that just like a mass, a convocation is a moment of personal reflection on the individual you've become, the opinions you've developed, until the moment comes where your name is called, you cross the stage and begin the true adulthood of your life.

I will not say goodbye to the party, and I will not succumb to the detested term "real world" but a certain part of me has moved on, and it will be the next few years that will decide what that part is.

posted by mr. tomas ubik @ Monday, June 13, 2005