Well that was a long strange trip. I just completed Matriculation here at Oxford, which is difficult to explain. Basically, back in the day, there used to be an exam (taken in Latin) before you could consider yourself a student here at Oxford and it included a ceremony. Well, all that is left is the ceremony (still in Latin). We got all dressed up in what we call a subfusc (sub-FUS-k), which is basically a Harry Potter cape, and walked from the college to the Examination Schools to hear a short speech from the Vice Chancellor of Oxford. When I started to think that this tradition has been taking place in the same way since the 12th century (minus the swords they were required to carry back then) it was pretty cool.
The above video is most of the walk and part of the inside. They asked us to turn off cameras for the actual ceremony. Let me know what you think!
Very cool! Thanks for telling me about your blog. It will be fun finding out what you are up to on the other side of the sea!
ReplyDelete-Thomas and Melissa
Is croquet part of the walk, or just a welcome break from the formalities?
ReplyDeleteA little bit of both. After the official walk, it is a college tradition to play croquet in the quad. Certainly not mandatory, but still part of the pomp and circumstance.
ReplyDeleteReally nice.....
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