Last Friday was the graduation for Class 35 of the Applied Communication Program, Camosun College. The ceremony was perhaps a bit different from the ruck and run, being a variety show of presentations of each graduate's final project, with a pair of MoCs providing the clunky in-jokes usually reserved for yearbook captions.
I admit to some anticipation of what they would say about the Beloved Child. "Every class has one, the egghead, the know-it-all even the teachers turn to, and Class 35 had Chris Shier..."
Aaawww... I'm so proud.
About 20 projects were covered, each with a few minutes of clips, or web-pages, or photo-montage or video. The range was impressive: documentaries on topics from disability accessibility to geocaching to culture shock from the immigrant's viewpoint to Victoria's juggling community; a recruitment program for volunteer firefighters; a 'compilation album' that was actually a mockumentary; books including a children's book illustrated with collage and silhouette, a 156 page satirical comic book, and a photography book on Japanese gardens in Victoria; a catalogue for a local luthier; radio segments for BC's 150th, and surprisingly, only one webcomic.
Considering how difficult it can be to write a synopsis or two-paragraph blurb for one's novel, I have much sympathy for the students turning their months of work into a couple of minutes of visuals and voiceover. They did well.
Chris and his classmate Laila put together an art magazine and website called Shopworn, with interviews and overviews of artists on south Vancouver Island. Due to some glitch, their promo picture (a rather snazzy one of the two of them each holding a copy of the magazine in front of their faces, one cover and one inside spread, showing a 360 panorama of the studio featured) remained on the screen between each of the remaining presentations. More air time, well done!
The last time we'd been in that room, a rather charming one with plastered decorations of faces and pillars, was for an Eric Bogle concert, possibly before Chris was born. It also had a balcony, where we sat, because one doesn't often have the chance, nowadays.
The other time-passy moment was looking at Chris in his suit, and Mark in his suit (I was allowed to get away with narrow-wale corduroy trousers and a silk shirt) and noticing how much alike they looked, except for hair, because Chris has my hair, which is brown and thick (this may make up for him having my temper and teeth, I don't know).
Refreshments afterwards, and Mark, Zoe and I somehow reached the liquid refreshments before everyone else, perhaps because we went through the nearest door, and had our wine and beer while most attendees were struggling through the corridor where the food was laid out.
After some struggling on our part, we found the room where the portfolios were laid out. Unlike the rather nicely done arrangement of presentations, this was rather a muddle. The table was in the computer room, and was tucked into one corner, without much room to manoeuvre around it. The portfolios were laid out in 3 rows, so that even if the viewers circled the table, some would be inaccessible. I ended up pulling 4 or 5 out of the middle and putting them on nearby desks.
Oh, and why do people have this impulse to close a portfolio after looking at it, so that no one else coming along can tell what's in it? I've seen this in other displays, and it's maddening, because one opens the portfolios or binders or books to enticing pages to draw people over, and as soon as someone's been drawn over, he tidily closes them all into blank forbiddingness. It's not as if people looking at displays are tidy in any other discernible way.
But I rant. Stopping now.
The child has graduated. Tomorrow we're leaving for 2 weeks in England. That's where things are at present.
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