By a stroke of good luck I arrived late enough not to be held up and not too late as to have arrived after the ceremony had begun. I thought that I had read somewhere that we needed to arrive 30mins before the ceremony to be fitted and not 2hrs like Jason Sorbello said after I had arrived. Whoops.

The ceremony contained no wardrobe malfunctions or spectacular accidents to my disappointment, however there was one notable incident where one of the university big-wigs decided to write a 50 min + speech. NOT HAPPY JAN!

After telling the boss that I needed to leave work about 30min early (4:30) I decided to stay until 5 o'clock anyway because I figured that I could be showered and changed at work and down at the Entertainment Centre by 5:30pm which would allow me 30min to get my gown ready for the ceremony which was to start at 6pm. Everything went according to plan up until I tried to find parking at the Entertainment Centre. No parks. It took me roughly 6 to 7 mins to find a park at the nearby boat ramp and even then I had to park on the kerb risking a fine.

It was about 5:40pm by the time I reached the point where we collect gowns, the people there told me that I was cutting it a bit fine and told me that they had given one of their other friends a hard time about being the last though. I didn't feel very stressed because as far as I was concerned, there was almost 15mins to go. The whole process was really smooth, some girl took about a minute to find my paperwork but that was about it. The ushers handed me a card, told me to hang on to it and whisked me off to my seat.

It turned out that my seat was at the end of the row, I didn't need to climb over anyone and I got to sit next to Jason Sorbello and Allan Tolentino.

My main man Jason and Big Al

Everything was sweet except for the fact that I needed to pee. I told Jason that I figured that I had enough time for that and so I stuffed my card into my pocket and wandered off to the toilet.

I read the card after I pulled it out of my pocket.  Turns out that the dude who reads the other side of the card doesn't want to read a screwed up bit of paper, no-one gives a shit if it's bent.

The ushers at the exit door nearly had a heart attack because the Chancellor's address was due to begin in about 7 minutes. They quizzed me about where I was off to and I told them that I was off to the toilet and that I take less time than a girl. I arrived back at my seat later with at least 3 minutes remaining. The 1RAR band played past 6pm and announced that the ceremony had been delayed because some important people were running late.

There were some speeches beginning at about 6:15pm before the presentations. The ushers filed us through to collect our testamurs and afterwards there were more speeches, one particular old guy insisted on using this captured audience to tell us of his life story. He tested the patience of everyone there, everyone thinking that he would finish soon but to their dismay he continued rambling about no internet and bicycles with books etc. At about the 30 minute mark people just got fed up with his random drivel and began walking out. I wish I could have been one of those people. He had to have seen the trickle of people making their way to the exits but yet he elected to continue his sick experiment for an additional 20 minutes until someone in the audience decided to clap as if his speech was finished and everyone else quickly joined in forcing him to stop, close up the novel he was reading from and return to his seat.

A blurred shot from my phone, I was trying to make it short.

What irritates me about that incident is that the guy didn't accidentally write a 50min + speech. Could he possibly say “Oh whoops, I didn't realise that if I rambled for an hour people might get pissy about it”? Or maybe “Oh I didn't realise that this 400 page book I wrote would take an hour or more to read out”? I say the prick knew all about it!

After the Academic Procession I rushed to return my gown before everyone else got the same idea. Many others were getting photos with their families but since no-one from my family attended I could shortcut straight to the return.

In the car park I found that people had locked me in, cars had parked so close either end that I'm surprised that there was no damage to my car. As Barry Mitchell and I walked away one of the people drove their car away leaving us to make a fast getaway before everyone started leaving the venue.