Ow. Ow. Ow.

Reading CV advice makes you really, really aware of yourself as a bundle of skills, qualifications and abilities.

"Negative traits: unable to turn head fully to the right, due to shoulders being too tense."

(Note: you would not put this on a real CV, where you are supposed to skim over your personal failings. You would put "able to turn head successfully and almost painlessly to the left".)

Note to parents: if all goes well, I am graduating on July 21st. The ceremony (here: http://www.admin.cam.ac.uk/univ/degrees/ceremony) is quite cool, if you like that kind of thing. First the Regent House expresses its approval or disapproval of you by saying "Placet" ("it pleases") or "Non placet"; then the person presenting you says you are "suitable as much by character as by learning" to proceed to your degree (though they say it in Latin), then you kneel and the Vice Chancellor admits you to the degree. Then you get up and go and get your certificate, and the whole process is repeated for tons of other graduates. "After the last graduand has been admitted, one of the Esquire Bedells calls the Congregation to order with the word 'Magistri' (Masters)".

(This, for one thing, suddenly makes sense of the end of "Gaudy Night", where Peter proposes to Harriet:
"With a gesture of submission he bared his head and stood gravely, the square cap dangling in his hand.
"'Placetne, magistra?'
"'Placet.'")

Matriculation was nowhere NEAR this formal. I don't remember any dress code, we were mostly extremely hungover, and some of us were still wearing traces of green face paint.

Poetry reading tonight. Time to take some ibuprofen, I think.