Sympathists of Cloaked and Eccentric Tykes,

I have recently broken my New Year’s resolution for the first, second and third time this year.

I generally dislike the Christmas and New Year period, but I began observing the tradition of setting a New Year’s resolution two years ago. I had become tired of meetings, training events, team-bonding charades and other gimmicks at work – some days I would make the hour-long journey only to keep these silly appointments in which I didn’t need to contribute and only my presence was mandatory. My New Year’s Resolution, always constant so perhaps more of a life ethic, is that I will not do anything that I don’t want to do. It’s a fine principle to uphold, but this does not mean that I won’t wash the dishes or pay the window cleaner – behind every unpleasant chore, there must be a desired positive result; clean plates or no court battles.

The resolution was first broken when I went for a haircut - no good can ever come from this act – for the first time since January. Despite giving the hairdresser orders, she refused to obey them. My hair was understandably long, I requested that it was shortened yet left long by relative standards, but she seemed too frightened to cut it at all, perhaps because its greatness should have been left alone in the first place. After half an hour of nibbling at my hair, and my complaints that it wasn’t what I wanted, I lost my patience and agreed that it was fine.

Even before going home to look in the mirror and try to reason with it, I decided to get another haircut at a different place. This technically may not be breaking the resolution twice but it was still a haircut.

Of course, all these haircuts were in aid of another violation of the resolution – the act of attending my graduation ceremony. I was loath to attend and conform to the stuffy protocols, the sheer pomposity of it all rankled me severely. I also didn't like the presumptuousness required in agreeing to attend the graduation ceremony before being notified of my exam results. The whole experience was needlessly expensive.

Firstly, a mandatory fee had to be paid to be entered into the General Council of graduates. Secondly, the dress code has to be adhered to: dark trousers, white shirt and white bow tie or highland dress under the gown and hood appropriate to degree awarded. I was able to hire the gown and hood but I had to buy a white shirt and bow tie. I’m not a goth but I only had 3 shirts in my cupboard and all 3 were black. I wish I could be a goth, they have remarkable strength of character - to go around in large groups intimidating others being individual - but I could never afford the lifestyle; it’d require a complete wardrobe overhaul and that’s costly. I couldn’t just buy the one set of black clothes and then become smelly wearing them day after day (evidently most do) or be a gothic person one day and then return to wearing my usual threads whilst my black things were in the washing, that’d just be silly. At the graduation, a black shirt with a suitable tie would have been fine under the black gown with green hood, but there was to be no room for such anarchy.

I had my photograph taken before the ceremony; the “prestige pack” prints will be awful when they arrive, my gown and hood weren’t really designed to fit my zero per cent body fat frame and didn’t sit at all properly or comfortably. One of my bugbears has always been when buying a top (jersey, t-shirt etc), I buy a “Large” - because I am tall and not because I am fat – and it just doesn’t work out.

The time before the bell rang was a bit of a blur: greeting fellow students, further unwanted photo moments and the stress of guiding my parents into the city via cell phone, they were arriving later due to the fact that I had arrived earlier but mainly because of work commitments; much to my annoyance they obviously did not heed my precise directions the night before. However, everyone was in their seats, in the McEwan Hall, for the 30-minute organ recital – not a Ramones, Captain Beefheart or even an ABBA medley but stuff by Bach, Mendelsson and Stanley.

The Academic Procession arrived, and then the Vice-Chancellor Prof. Geoffrey Boulton welcomed everyone and introduced Reverend Di Williams for the Moment of Reflection. Vice-Principal Young Dawkins presented the Alumnus of the Year award to J. Fraser Stoddart, one of the world’s leading chemists and an expert in nanotechnology. Stoddart received wave after wave of applause, magnificently amplified in the grand McEwan Hall, before he began his speech. Stoddart, a three-time graduate of the yooni, reminded the hall that it had rejected his application for a job there many years ago, spoke against the medical profession in the UK and spoke with dismay about educational institutions who have or are closing their chemistry departments.

Once the big award winner had ended his speech, the long list of names began. We had to slide along the row of seats until at the end, when we had to stand up wait for the head of the department to finish reading our name, then walk forward, be slapped around the head with the hat, supposedly make from the fabric of John Knox’s breeks. We then had receive our certificates from a desk at the side of the stage and join the sliding process again until arrival back at our original seats, when the next row starts sliding. That’s it – I didn’t even get to make a speech. If I ever have to graduate again, my only chance to get more time in the limelight will come if I adopt some middle names, after all, I had sit through your actual Timothy James Benjamin Carter-Stapleton and Jennifer Alexandra Barwick-Mitchell. I ought to get some Scandinavian middle names; “Morten Weighorst Leif Eriksson Peter Bjorn and John” might have allowed me to compete with the others if inserted between my two lonely appellations. Afterwards, the concept of name bingo was discussed; participants shout “House”, probably whilst some genius is being bashed by the hat, when all the names on their official grudguation bingo card have been called out, and the prize is be to promptly set upon and ejected from the ceremony by the guards.

After all the chemistricians had graduated, an American, Prof. Harry Gray, was presented with an honorary doctorate. He was desperate to make a speech and he was reasonably jovial. More names, the graduation choir, more names and another speech from the Vice-Chancellor and the ceremony was over, around 90 minutes after it began. We proceeded out of the ornate McEwan Hall and into the storm.

I gathered the family; father had thoroughly enjoyed his day, headed for shelter in the Chemistry department reception marquee, had something to drink and had some cake. A while later, we returned to the Kingdom, where, thankfully, they call a spade “a spade” and don’t need other people to wear gowns and bow ties to do so.

It wasn’t the day of the graduates; it was a day for the parents, for them to look on proudly, if they so wished. I wish my conduct during the day was better, I don't usually lose my patience so easily, but given my all my reservations, it was probably the best that could be expected.