A Journey's End

Until a year ago at this time, I had spent the last 15 years living out of what amounted to two suitcases worth of personal possessions. My backpack took me to Crown College, Lithuania, Kyrgyzstan, Massachusetts, Yellowstone, Cooke City, Scotland, Paris, Germany, and numerous other countries and states in between.

 

This blog has captured it all, and it now holds just a few of the many, many stories that this photo represents. But as I now retire from living out of two suitcases and traversing the globe and country on 1-month—4-year adventures, my hectic life at Whitworth will afford me little by way of interesting tales to tell. And so, as I officially retire from that life, I have also decided to retire this blog. It has been fun to keep; it has been fun to share; the time now seems right to end it.

To all of you who have kept in touch with me via this blog over the years, thank you. To all of you who have taken an interest in my life’s journeys via this blog, thank you.

I do know that my adventures won’t end simply because I now have a permanent address outside of Minnesota. My camera will continue to go with me on spontaneous day trips, hikes, and (eventually) planned journeys beyond Spokane. For that reason, I’ll continue to add photos now and then to the other blog I’ve kept over the years, the photo blog: www.haleylaraepictures.blogspot.com. The only stories it contains are those told in the pictures. If you want to see a photo when I add one, you can input your email address at the bottom of the blog. When I post a photo, it will be sent directly to your email. I guarantee you, it won’t be often!

Again, from 2006 when this blog was started until now, thank you.

Haley

big blue, part 2

We processed around St. Salvators Quad...

 



I went and found the mace-men and asked them to stand straight and tall. They kindly obliged, and even with a chuckle.

 

 

We had a few laughs...

 

 

and gave a few hugs... (actually, I have no idea what we are doing here)

 

 

This is Jen, my dear friend and PhD colleague here. She also kindly attended graduation as my guest, with Judith, and took loads of photos for me. Thank you!

 

St Salvator's Church

 

 

and a finish with one of my favourite people in Scotland, Judith, the woman I lived with for nearly three years.

 

I think we were singing a song...

 

 

Judith in St Salvators

 

 

big blue, part 1

The organist played, the chaplain spoke...

 

The vice-chancellor bopped us graduands on the head with what tradition says are John Knox's knickers. In reality, it is a piece of fabric from some late seventeenth-century doctor's birretum [fancy hat], which has been conferring degrees for over 300 years.

 

I walked across a stage dressed in blue and holding my hood...

 

When the Dean of the Faculty of the Arts and Divinity had finished naming my degree and reading the title of my thesis (which is half Greek and which he did quite masterfully--with practice, I was told), he called me across the stage. A man then took my hood... (notice the people to the right of the stage, how much they are clapping for me. I don't even know them)...

 

I knelt, and the vice-chancellor then spoke Latin over me: et super te, meaning 'and upon you'. It is the shortened version of (in Latin): 'I promote you to the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy, as a symbol of which I place this cap upon you'. The moment that the cap touches the head is the point at which the degree is officially conferred. So I got bopped on the head with a 300+ year old hat and officially became Dr. Haley Goranson. Then the official Mace-Man hooded me, and I left the stage as a changed person (if only in title. It's a shame that I don't care more about titles. As it is, my students will still call me Haley, which I will always prefer, I think).

 

After some speeches and a couple of songs from the choir, the mace-men removed the maces...

and the stage was eventually cleared...

 

 

at which point we all processed out into St. Salvator's Quad (of which, see anon).