Digital Analogue

The regalia saga

As I've mentioned before, I decided to rent my robes for Convocation from Brown to get the true Brown robes. In retrospect, this was more trouble than it was worth.

They were going to arrive after I left Providence (and I couldn't get them shipped to Galesburg), so I asked Sam if he'd pick them up. Sure, just send a reminder, says he. But I miscommunicated the date it would be, so when I emailed him Thursday, I got no response. I called him Friday, no response. Called Rob, and it turns out Sam had gone out of town for the weekend.

Ok, don't panic; Rob can pick it up and mail it tomorrow (Saturday). But remember to go to the Post Office early, because it closes! And sure enough, it closed before he got there. So he sends it Monday morning, express mail, guaranteed to arrive by 3pm Wednesday. Whew.

At 3:30pm on Wednesday, I go to the Knox PO, and they have not received my package, and the last dropoff of the day had already happened. I get the tracking number from Rob, and it turns out the package arrived in Peoria at 1:57pm. I call the USPS to see what the deal was, and they suggested calling the local post office, which I did---they said that since it hadn't arrived in Galesburg yet, it'd come in overnight. I asked if I could pick it up first thing in the morning; sure, the window's open at 7:30am.

They left a message on my phone a little after 6 that it had arrived. About 7:45 I show up at the window to inquire after it. The guy disappeared for an alarmingly long time, and then came back with the package in hand, commenting that I just caught the truck before it left; it had been all loaded up and everything. No word on exactly when it would've gotten to the Knox PO, although the PO doesn't even open until 10, so getting it in time for the 11:00 Convocation would've been a dicey affair.

On the up side, because they screwed up and delivered it late, it should end up being free.

Convocation went well, though! They introduced me, the choir sang, they gave out lots of prizes to deserving fac, staff, and students, the Hon. Ruben Castillo gave a good speech on not taking anything for granted that managed to reference 9/11 without being dreadful. The whole place sang the alma mater, which I sang along to by lip-reading the choir conductor, who was on stage (the prof next to me was impressed; I had the refrain down pat in full voice by the end). Afterwards, I pressed one of the other profs into service taking a picture of me in regalia, as requested by Mom, which I'll post one of these days.

My syllabus and missive are printed, my course website is more or less done, and my first lecture is written out. I'm on at 2:15, we'll see how this goes.

"Well, I don't think normal goo cubes are intelligent, although maybe they're just misunderstood." --Ben Gold