At long last, I have graduated.

So, yeah, that's a thing that happened.  And took ... ok, time passes in strange ways during graduation cermonies.  To the outside world some hours pass, but those who survive them know that they actually last for several years.

Anyway, two bachelor's degrees.  One in Mathematics.  The other in Classics.  Probably earned enough credits to have three degrees but my university has no rules about earning more than two degrees in a single run and my non-degree credits were so unfocused I didn't even get a minor (I think I was close to twelve or some such.)

Long time readers are probably aware that part of the reason that I was at university so long was that I originally could have graduated well before I had an antidepressant that worked so without school I'd have stayed inside all the time, never interacted with people, and had little to no fun stuff in my life.

One of the teachers that helped me the most during that time was laid off without cause via voicemail on Halloween the year before last.  After the evil people did the job of destroying all hope at the university they . . . well they left.  Job done.  They moved on.

And then an interesting thing happened.  The new regime seems to be, you know, a decent one.  What was the first thing I heard of them doing.  Well before it was official, called the worst kept secret in Maine, I learned that they were offering said teacher (buy her translation of Catullus, by the way (no, I don't get anything if you do)) a job.  A good job.  A powerful job.

Not in a classroom, which is unfortunate because she's fucking awesome in the classroom, but given that they made her Provost . . . well, she's always used her power for good, but now she actually has power.

So, I could have gone with the Math people or the "Self Designed because you didn't design it yourself but we refuse to call your department a department" people.  I went with the second because I knew I wanted Classics to be listed first (even though I earned it second, hence the listing above.)

When the person who was handing out the degrees --which are actually degree holder that say, "Your grades aren't in and, since we assume you needed to pass your most recent classes to graduate because only Chris Witham is stupid enough to stick around here well after earning graduation because of desire and attempts at self improvement, we're not totally sure you earned a degree yet so we'll mail the real thing later,"-- heard "Classics" said person handed "degree" to Jeannine, sitting at this point because the provost only stands for PHDs and Masters, she handed it to me, and then there was hugging.

So, that went well.  Mind you my mother, the only one recording didn't actually get that part, because she was doing the whole, "To hell with the video I'm shooting, I'll cheer and lose all sight of everything." thing.  Which is too bad.

But, yeah, I'm graduated now.

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Also the person representing the Board of Trustees was one of only two who did his job in the darkest days, and made a powerful, if losing, argument that they as a board should actually do their jobs.  The Student speaker was one who is part of "Students for USM-Future" an organization founded in the dark days with the aim of fighting the dying of the light.

So the soulless assholes weren't on display, instead there were good people.  That's always nice.