I have been working in the lab the last couple of days and trying to work on the boring icky part of my thesis. Red gave me a call on Thursday afternoon and we went for a wander around the city and escaped the rain by having coffee at Essen. I worked quite late at the lab that night because I was chatting on ICQ at the time, so I felt productive and happy.
Friday was graduation for Red, Bridget and Heather. I wasn't sure what to wear, but last year I bought a little black shift dress which I had never worn, so I went with that and my black Guava jacket, beige hose and black sandals. The dress was a couple inches above the knee so I felt a bit exposed, but I'm sure no one else noted my nervousness. So, with full but subtle make-up I sauntered into the lab and I'm sure raised a few eyebrows with my absence of jeans and T-shirt. I felt quite sexy and empowered knowing that I was turning heads not only in the lab but between there and say walking over to the Union for lunch.
About 1 pm I went back home to touch up my make-up get a drink and forget my camera. I met up with Red's mother and brother at the Hall and I sat with them through the ceremony. The ceremony itself was quite fast and it was over in about 90 minutes despite a large number of graduates. I gave a small restrained cheer when my friends crossed the stage, and after the ceremony I managed to catch up with Bridget and Heather with their families at the University and at the afternoon tea at University House and get a photo or two taken.
Red and I eventually wandered back to Toad where I changed into jeans and got to take of the shoes which were starting to hurt. We went to an Indian Restaurant in Swinger Hill with Red, her brother, mother, mother's boyfriend and me and that was quite nice. I got home exhausted and flopped into bed after obligatory make-up removal being too exhausted again to ring home.
Wow! I just looked out my window and in the morning light the trees outside my window are shimmering like a golden field… Autumn is definitely the time for consciousness-expansion… ;) (Not that there'll be any of that going on)
Instead, I imagine I'll be walking about enjoying life. Just catching up with life this time last year, it was quite an interesting few days, mainly with me formulating plans for the near future. Except for the unfortunately optimistic hope of submitting my thesis by January, I've done electrolysis, gone full-time, escaped John's and had an interesting time to boot. Can't complain I guess…
Addendum - There is one major difference between me now and a year ago. About 7 kilos. This morning, butt-naked on the scales I weighed in at over 190 pounds (old speak) for the first time in my life. Or to put it another way, there's never been so much Steph in the world and God willing there never will be again. After a short amount of agonizing I signed myself back up to the University gym as a non-student, for a mildly painful $150. I was hoping to buy some arrows for training, but I guessed that I would despise myself less by wasting the money in this way. Sure, cycling and jogging are free, but it's a pain to do it in the dark and the cold of winter. There's also a particular drug which cuts fat, builds muscle and gives energy… unfortunately it's called testosterone.