The actual graduation part passed in a blur. I was totally stressed out in the morning because I opted to sleep early instead of finishing my presentation that night. I only had to present at 1:45pm the next day, but found myself at 12:45 still making slides. At the university, I was pleased at the turnout of people; Inga, Alexander, Alex, and Lemke had rushed back from Eindhoven to be there, and I felt like I had a lot of support (and a lot of people to potentially disappoint). I am not usually one to be very nervous at presentations, but as I talked it seemed as if I was a partial 3rd person observer floating a bit above myself as I babbled. I watched myself on several occasions pause significantly at an inappropriate moment to gather my thoughts or futilely try to read my 12pt font notes in the dark. Eventually I got into the flow of things and as the quality of my slides went down, I finally got a hold of myself and finished(smoothly?). Afterwards, my mentors spent half an hour trying to extricate my diploma from the locked secretary office. The waiting time was interminable. Every bump and shuffle at the doorway caused my heart leap in fear. Eventually the ordeal was over; it was time to begin stressing about my Halloween party.
We didn't get much time to prepare for the party, but I was treated to a nice dinner at the de Kurk by Jorn's parents. Sean was also there (visiting for a week from the US, en route to more exotic places). We had time for dessert and then we rushed directly to the boat to start decorating. Guests did not show up until around 10 or 11 so we had plenty of time to decorate. It turns out Kakee is amazing at making spiderweb sculptures. The rest is documented in pictures.
The party was fun and passed in a blur. Daniel was dressed as Dracula and kept up appearances by drinking red dyed beer all evening. Many other characters had also shown up, including the preacher and devil's advocate. The beer ran out at 4am, and we polished off the rest of the liquor, not bothering to make even mixes anymore. Even after we were totally out of alcohol, the party went on for another hour or two.
Sander and I closed up at 6 in the morning. We ended up cleaning up most of the mess in a drunken stupor while Jorn slept peacefully on his chair.
When we were done, we wandered out into the morning fog to fall into our respective beds for a few hours...until the real cleanup.
photo by Theo Howard
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