All over (almost)

The month of freedom has slipped away without being logged (although it has been extensively photographed), and this is the day before graduation, and I'm lying in bed with just the bedside light on and the surprisingly cool morning light coming in from the window. In the past few days things have concluded themselves one after another: our grades were posted dramatically on the Senate House boards on Friday, with a good 2.1 for me - 2.1s for every one of my friends thus far, in fact, bringing disappointment for some, blissful relief for others, and gentle contentment for me. We went on the Three-Legged Pub Crawl on Monday night, using the sashes from the play to tie our legs together, and when Tom and Ben started counting to keep in rhythm, Vicky was convinced they were going "two one! two one! [Notes for Non-Brits: the most common of two possible pronunciations of "2.1", the other being "upper second"], and we all started chanting similarly.

The other battle-cry of the month has been "shrew-shrew-shrew-shrew-shrew-SHREW!", chanted with increasing volume and rapidity at the successful conclusion of The Taming of the Shrew on Saturday, widely agreed to be a finer May Week show even than last year's. A video I took at the after-party shows everyone singing "Can't Take my Eyes Off Of You", replacing all the "oo"-sound words with "shrew" ("I love shrew, baby, and if it's quite all right, I need shrew, baby, to warm the lonely nights"). I almost understand why some people have something against actors.

Most prominent among these people (I love my transitions today) being Sam, who along with all the other non-graduands left college on Sunday. We'd spent Saturday afternoon going for a walk in what after a while turned into a rain storm. I had an umbrella in my bag, but we decided that we would just enjoy it in a Garden State manner, with the result that we were more thoroughly soaked than I've ever been outside of a shower. Pre-storm, we found ourselves in a tiny suburban park, and Sam climbed a tree. "Aren't you afraid of falling down," I asked when he had ascended metres above my head, mostly to give him a chance to profess his fearlessness. "I am now," he said, as if it had literally only just occurred to him.

Sad goodbye on Sunday, then yesterday while I was buying graduation-wear with Iona and Vicky in the Grafton centre (regulations for graduation-wear are very strict and involve looking as catering-staffish as possible in white shirt and dark trousers or skirt, and while I'm almost sure I can get away with my black dress, I thought I'd get a white shirt to be on the safe side), he called and said he was in town again. He came over, and we sat on a bench and talked. Another sad goodbye by the wig stall (the Grafton centre has a wig stall).

Grades gotten, play ended, second-years gone, and now all that's left is to graduate. (And finish packing, obviously.) The next couple of days will probably be kind of sleep-deprived. We're meeting in our DOS's room at 6:30 tonight for a champagne reception (I love it when you get an e-mail from your DOS with the subject line "champagne"), then it's graduation dinner, which is one of the three free meals the College gives you (the others are matriculation dinner and Halfway Hall). My parents and Axel arrive around ten, at which point I'll probably be at a post-dinner after-party. The next morning will feature some more frenzied packing once my parents turn up with empty suitcases, and then we'll head down to Old Court around ten to start the graduating. The actual ceremony will be around two, after which my father and Axel will fly back home. I'll have dinner with my mother and then a final party with my friends, which may or may not go on until I have to get up for my eight o'clock flight on Friday morning. And I guess I'll be home around midday, local time.

Really, it's almost too weird, but fortunately only almost.