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Friday, April 07, 2006
All Graduated
Tonight was the Graduation ceremony for the TAFE course Ata did last year. Some of you may recall Ata's struggles with this particular course - the difficulty centered primarily around working out whether the course actually existed, and what exactly the subjects were about. Apparently she must have worked it out in the end, because Ata qualified for two - count 'em, two - diplomas. Only had to do one set of subjects, mind you, but if you pick the right subjects you qualify for both certifications.

TAFE graduation ceremonies are a very different kettle of fish to University graduations. For a start, you don't have to hire a hot uncomfortably expensive gown. You don't have to sit in rows. You don't have to bow to ranks of extravagantly attired professors (howcome their gowns are so much fancier than ours?). In fact, most people did not even turn up to have their awards presented. Dammit, after all that class-attending and assignment-writing, I'm jolly well going to get my turn to have my name called while I walk across a stage. AND there was a Light Supper afterward.

Having sat down & settled in our chosen locations, Mr Ata went to the little boy's room. Ata looked about to see if she recognised any classmates - no luck on the classmate front, but lo and behold! Just three seats to the left was a Friend that Ata had not known would be there. He was on his own, so came to sit with Ata and Mr Ata. This Friend moonlights as film crew, and shall henceforth be known as Film Crew Friend, or FCF for short. In fact, one of his films was being shown this very evening at a film festival, as it had been nominated for an award, but he was unable to attend as he had prescheduled in the Graduation Ceremony.

So Ata and FCF pored over the evening's program, and speculated on exactly how long the whole shebang would take. When the ceremony started, Mr Ata entertained himself by sending text messages to a workmate and playing games on his phone. Ata and FCF entertained themselves by keeping track of where the ceremony was up to in the program, and making fun of names. Or more specifically, making fun of the presenter as they struggled, mangled, and skipped over difficult names. We waited eagerly for a presentation to a particularly poetically named girl - Lucia Maria De Sousa Pestana - but were disappointed when the presenter, having blundered through several difficult names already, chickened out and announced her as Lucy Pestana.

After the ceremony there was Food, which had been very eagerly awaited as the invitation specified arrival at 6:30, and no-one had eaten yet. It was very tasty, but laying hands on the hot food took a degree of tactical skill and an amount of assertiveness. Ata did alright with the chicken skewers and calamari rings, but it took several tries to get a filo triangle.

It was an alright evening on the whole. As good as a graduation ceremony can be expected to be. And now the course is officially done with, and Ata shall never need to do it again.
posted by Ata @ 9:57 pm  
1 Comments:
  • At 10:11 pm, Blogger Emano said…

    Congratulations! It must be great to be done!

     
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