Chapter 23, In Which Spike Gets Into University
AS PROMISED, HERE IS A POST ALL IN CAPITAL LETTERS. AS I FOUND OUT MY STATUS HAD BEEN CHANGED TO UNCONDITIONAL ON MONDAY (RIGHT AFTER I LAST POSTED) THIS SEEMS FAIRLY POINTLESS. ANYWAY, I WILL BE THERE WITH THE SOUTHAMPTON SOLENT FRESHERS 2009.
TODAY IS RESULTS DAY. THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE AROUND THE COUNTRY HAVE BEEN CELEBRATING AND/OR COMMISERATING THEIR GRADES. I GOT MY CELEBRATING OUT THE WAY ON MONDAY NIGHT, THERE IS NOTHING LEFT TO DO BUT START THE LONG PROCESS OF PACKING.
I HAVE RECENTLY REALISED I DON’T HAVE THE SLIGHTEST CLUE ABOUT ANYTHING TO DO WITH PSYCHOLOGY, AND THIS MIGHT BE A PROBLEM COME SEPTEMBER 19TH. THIS DOES NOT MATTER. I DO, HOWEVER, HAVE A FEW QUOTES THAT FIT NICELY WITH THE FLOW OF TODAY (NOT INCLUDING THE BRIEF TIME I SPENT SLEEPING IN THE LIVING ROOM WHILE PRETENDING TO WATCH PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN). MOST OF THESE BARE LITTLE RELEVENCE TO A LEVELS AND MORE TO UNIVERSITY, BUT OH WELL…
At commencement you wear your square-shaped mortarboards. My hope is that from time to time you will let your minds be bold, and wear sombreros.
Paul Freund
Commencement speeches were invented largely in the belief that outgoing college students should never be released into the world until they have been properly sedated.
Garry Trudeau
Education is a companion which no misfortune can depress, no crime can destroy, no enemy can alienate, no despotism can enslave. At home, a friend, abroad, an introduction, in solitude a solace and in society an ornament. It chastens vice, it guides virtue, it gives at once grace and government to genius. Without it, what is man? A splendid slave, a reasoning savage.
Joseph Addison
Graduation day is tough for adults. They go to the ceremony as parents. They come home as contemporaries. After twenty-two years of child-raising, they are unemployed.
Erma Bombeck
If you feel that you have both feet planted on level ground, then the university has failed you.
Robert Goheen
Time Magazine, 23 June 1961
Of course there’s a lot of knowledge in universities: the freshmen bring a little in; the seniors don’t take much away, so knowledge sort of accumulates.
A. Lawrence Lowell
The man who will use his skill and constructive imagination to see how much he can give for a dollar, instead of how little he can give for a dollar, is bound to succeed.
Henry Ford
To the uneducated, an A is just three sticks.
A.A. Milne
(BECAUSE WINNIE THE POOH IS STILL AWESOME)
Try not. Do or do not. There is no try.
Yoda
In movie The Empire Strikes Back
(BECAUSE IVE BEEN STARING AT THE SIGN SAYING IT IN THE RE ROOM FOR THE LAST TWO YEARS)
Your families are extremely proud of you. You can’t imagine the sense of relief they are experiencing. This would be a most opportune time to ask for money.
Gary Bolding
(BECAUSE ITS SO TRUE. LOL)