Paula on Graduation Day.

“Tip, tip, don’t trip”; tip the mortarboard once to the Dean, once to the Vice Chancellor. And don’t fall flat on your face walking the plush red carpet of the stage,in front of hundreds of people – parents, peers – your robe flying up and flashing flesh beneath.

It’s an exciting day, my graduation. Even having to stand in line at the admin office to pay for it is oddly thrilling in its own way.

Then I go to get fitted out in my robe; being fussed over by a series of lowly university employees – plebs! – each focussing on a different aspect of the attire and passing me from set of hands to set of groping hands, mollycoddled like the precious, precocious child that I am. I love that too.

Finally I’m ushered into my seat, in the sea of fellow graduands, each exactly alike in the sexless cloaks, and goofy grins on their faces, waiting for their turn to be called up to the stage.

Then – in a flurry of long, boring speeches, endless academic processions, applause at every bloody handshake – it’s suddenly over.

We move over to the real exciting part – free food! And basking in the glory of polite, prolific congratulations.

My parents have never seen anything quite like this ceremony. Communist Poland wasn’t too big on keeping up with bourgeois traditions, I guess, and my dad received his own diploma by rocking up to the Dean’s office one morning and signing off on it. No pomp, no ceremony.

But it works out great for me, because he’s so moved by the whole thing he’s spending money on me left right and centre, buying expensive formal photos, frames for my testamur, and even lunch! Who says a daughter’s affection can’t be bought!

So I tipped my cap to the Dean and Vice Chancellor and did not trip along the stage.

The falling over didn’t begin until the post-graduation drinks…

Yeah, the drinks...

Regaining the balance.