After a long and difficult battle, my university finally succumbed, and I became a graduand for a Master of Dispute Resolution (with Honours).
The ceremonial instructions displayed a typical lack of humour (with a touch of passive voice): “You must return your academic dress … within one hour of the close of your graduation ceremony … By hiring the academic dress, you agree [we are] entitled to charge you the full purchase price … if it is not returned by the return time.”
I thought I should try out my new qualification in dispute resolution (with much dishonour) by taking off, and going drinking all day, in the university’s garb, and then return to face the dispute (and a BATNA of about five hundred bucks).
Once robed, I took my place. The ceremony was lovely. I knew some of the academics on stage. The Registrar was a friend from my course. And he’d even signed my degree. I started to give my stunt second thoughts. But then, the invited speaker, a lawyer, rose to give her address.
“I’m sure you’ve all read The Pin Striped Prison,” she said. “Well, I’ve lived it …”
We murmured with amusement and she moved on to the compulsory urgings:
“Use your qualifications for good.”
And she offered inspiration:
“Above all else,” she said. “Have courage, and be true to your selves.”
She was right. I love cheeky stunts. I love writing Lexcursions! I have a deadline for an article and I’m all out of ideas! I would, I would run off with the university’s clothes!
And, after some hasty testamur-framing and teddy bear-buying, and hand-shaking and polite-chatting and tasty cream-cheese sandwich-eating with my Registrar-friend, I took off into the streets.
I regretted my first stop. I was scheduled to attend a training lunch hosted by a large firm and I thought it would be fun to keep the appointment. It was not. As I took my place at the table, colleagues quer-
ied my outfit.
“You might have seen my articles,” I said. “In the Law Society Journal?”
“No.”
“Afraid not.”
“Never heard of them. Or you.”
And after a soulless 90 minutes – once I felt that every last drop of graduation good-cheer had been sucked out of me through my tassel – I was delighted to take up my degree and bid my table farewell. I went straight to The Ivy.
“Congratulations!” said the barman. “I just graduated myself.” And he gave me a free shot.
A similar thing happened at the next bar, and next. The barkeepers of Sydney, it seems, are a studious lot who value education and show it by giving away drinks. No less generous were the public. I felt like a digger on Anzac Day with people patting me on the back, inspecting my regalia, and shouting me senseless.
“But where are your classmates?”
“All my mates finished before me. Including this guy – the Registrar, who signed my degree.”
“Well, he’s gone places. What happened to you?”
With the sun and my demeanour starting to dip, I staggered over Pyrmont Bridge, for one final stop: Star City Casino.
I hoped to put myself in funds in case the university really did charge me.
“I can’t let you in with those things,” said the security woman. “You’ll have to check them in the cloakroom.”
“But I don’t want to cloak my degree. It’s a Masters – does that make any difference?”
“That makes it worse,” she said. “You’re over-qualified to be coming in here.”
Rebuffed, but delightedly drunk, I made it back to university just as another graduation spilled out. I walked to the gowning room, some six hours late, and approached the sternest looking man I could see.
“I’m here to return my gown and everything, but …”
“Student card, please.”
” … I might be a little bit late.”
“That will be …” he said, scanning my card with a beep. “Fine.”
“What? Really? They said I’d have to buy all of this stuff.”
“We have to say that, or else everyone would run off with it.”
If you ask me, everyone should.