Today I attended (even participated) in my graduation ceremony. It was held at Bridgwater Hall in Manchester. The most stressful part of the day was actually travelling there in the rush-hour, but in the end I was in the hall with 15 minutes to spare before we were supposed to be seated. It was only about 30 miles from where I live, but the journey took 2 1/4 hours!
It all went without fuss really, and I didn't get a great deal out of it to be honest, but it was nice that I could share the day with my wife, children (more young adults by now) and parents especially since my Dad has been unwell recently.
There were a bunch of honorary graduates in the program, although none of them were actually at the event that I saw. It was nice to see that David Braben was awarded for services to arts and sciences. He is of course famous for the computer game Elite on the old BBC micro from the 80's. This was one of the handful of computer games I ever owned or played (never did make Elite status though). Anyway, a bit of a computer super-hero if there is such a thing.
So I took my place in the queue along with a few hundred others and stepped up on stage to get my handshake and a tube containing something (later found to be a USB stick with OU links on it), and after a couple of hours it was all over.
Then we left my son in Manchester where he is currently studying at the University and the rest of us made our torturous way home in the car, stopping off for a pub lunch on the way.
So that's it. Now I feel I can draw a line under the whole thing. I will write one more blog post after I've had time to let today sink in, and then I will bring this blog to a close.
