Getting Hooded

Sounds dangerous, doesn't it? It's what they call the doctoral graduation. If you've been to a college graduation where the professors wore their rather outlandish "regalia"--heavy woolen robes utterly inappropriate for warm weather and long satin hoods that hang down to the back of the knees--then you know what I mean. My advisor will put the hood on me to signal the conferring of the degree. Which actually happened last summer, so I wasn't going to go for the ceremony, but I wanted to visit NC this month, and this was the only weeked that worked . . . so there you have it.

All this is a long way of saying bye for now--I won't be able to post until next week, when I come back to give an exam. An exam that incidentally will probably not save X's grade (remember him?), especially after he brought to class what (barely) looked like a 10-page paper, but was actually 2 pages of the paper, along with 8 pages cut and pasted from another document to make the paper look longer. He thought I wouldn't notice.

It's funny though; X and his henchmen drive me batty, but it's been a great year overall. I wish I were a better teacher; I wish I ate more vegetables; I wish I didn't entertain silly crushes; I wish I had the inner peace to just cancel the TV altogether. But I at least have a job, and a house that is becoming more and more like home, and new friends, and a real church, a congregation of people called by God. And wonderful old friends to visit this weekend (like it or not, guys, I'm coming!). With all those things to think about, the hood seems just incidental.