Next weekend, I'm taking the 3.5 hour bus ride back to my graduate institution for my official graduation, as one of the strange rules of my institution is that you aren't officially a graduate until you participate in yet another ritualized ceremony. This morning, I'd actually started looking forward to the spectacle of it all: the stooping and kissing of somebody or other's finger (a great idea, really, at the start of the flu season); the formal lunch; the wearing of strange, furry hoods a la Harry Potter (disclaimer: no rabbits were harmed in the making of my hood. I felt excited for all of ten minutes, and then I noticed who else was graduating with me.
This is a November ceremony, which means the convocation is extremely small. Six people from my college will walk on Saturday. Of those six, two of them despise each other. Actually, "despise" is too kind a word. One wishes the other had never come into existence; the other wishes the first would collapse writhing in a blistering pool of fiery substances. And yes, of course, this all comes down to housemate disputes of yore. It would all be hilarious, if she hadn't accused me of truly heinous things which I think the school might halfway believe.
So, our entime graduate luncheon is going to be a frosty, silent debacle. Ever tried to avoid eye contact or conversation with someone who's sharing your very small table? I may have to accidentally cut off my finger with a butterknife if we're seated across from each other. Maybe I can stave off any simmering tension by blurting out what I could hear through the walls most evenings. That should encourage the others to change the subject before anyone spills blood on the steamed potatoes. Alphabetically speaking, I'm just behind this ex-housemate -- thank god, because otherwise I'd spend the entire ceremony terrified that I would finish with a knife protruding from my back.
See? This is why people should not be allowed to live together unless they know what they're getting into ahead of time.
Maybe I can say I've been deported back to the U.S. and convince them to let me graduate in absentia.
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