I present, for your consideration, a list of candidates:
- A letter? Could be, if you're in the habit of sending and/or receiving letters on paper. Not for me though, as mine are nearly all in electronic form. Haven't had a letter on paper in... uh... no idea actually.
- A cheque? Depends on your financial situation 8p
- Something you wrote or drew? I have thousands of these, and if push came to shove, one of them might win out - but a lot of them are pretty negligible.
- Your birth certificate? Obviously important, but not that exciting. After all, practically everyone has one.
- Your marriage certificate? Much more exciting... if you have one. Which I don't.
- Your death certificate? Not really - you don't get one of these until your life is over, so it can't count as an important piece of paper *in* your life.
- Your driving license? Could be a winner for petrolheads, but from my point of view it's more a practical tool, rather than a thing of emotional significance. Well, I say that after having had it for more than three years, with the trauma of failing my first test long since lost in the sands of time. You might regard your license as your most important piece of paper for the first few months after you get it.
- A certificate of academic achievement? Quite possibly, especially if it says something about first class honours.
I haven't actually picked one myself. I just felt like having a philosophical ramble.
But then again, having been given a piece of paper at Guildford Cathedral yesterday which says something about Bachelor of Science with First Class Honours, I might just go for that one as my current choice for the time being 8]
I could take this as my cue to go tangential on the architecture of the Cathedral, but I'll leave religious masonry for another day.
It's a bit weird to find myself looking back on my graduation as a past event, after well over three years regarding it as something in the future. Guildford may have one of the country's most minimalist and austere cathedrals, but it's a cathedral nonetheless, and being there with most of the other people on my course, all in matching superhero capes and funny hats (yes, we threw the hats afterwards) is one of those once-in-a-lifetime things that sticks with you. I think it will be, anyway. It's interesting to question which aspects will be remembered - the determination of my cape to become asymetrical... the commentary on last month's haircut (which most of my coursemates hadn't seen yet)... the endless, hand-numbing applause... the long, oddly smug-yet-awkward walk down the aisle after shaking hands with the principal... the mildly inappropriate but not overly depressing weather... the funny puddings back at the college afterwards... or something else altogether? Only time will tell, I suppose.
Some of the other guys have already got jobs - Steve said his mostly involves watching lots of Irish film trailers, which somehow seems inherently funny - and others (myself included) are still looking. Or in my case, looking a bit, and writing monster movies on the side - as you do.
We didn't get professional photos taken. We've got a Nikon D80 DSLR, and we adopted the tried-and-trusted digital photography method of keep-on-pointing-and-shooting-until-something-works. Well, more or less. It wasn't quite point-and-shoot per se, but you get the idea. But it was a heck of a lot cheaper doing it ourselves.
*long pause*
Uh... that didn't really feel like a properly-written ending, but I'm not sure what else to say, so I'm going to leave it there for now. Photos maybe coming sort of soonish.
- The Colclough
