I am Troisnyx, LLB (Hons).

The graduation ceremony for my LLB took place two days ago (22 November 2012) at St Albans, the same city we used to frequent for our lectures up till mid-2011.

It was a very bittersweet day, with none of my family able to make it. I only had one witness for the day — my close friend and bandmate from Kingdom of Herts, Christo Tracey. 22 November was also the feast day of St Cecilia, patron saint of music and musicians, and I was unable to attend Mass on the day because it coincided with the graduation ceremony. To top it all up, Mark Tanner's birthday was on the 22nd, and we really missed him a lot!

I decided to wear my favourite dress: one that my mother got for me several years ago. Many people bought or rented new dresses, suits and whatnot... but I decided to go with the one that I cherished the most.

Pictures and visuals



My walk to the main building at College Lane Campus — the Prince Edward Hall. I was told that there were shuttles from the area, so I walked. I later discovered that there were no shuttles going from that place, and that we had to take the 602 (or 655) to St Albans and pay the standard student fare! Not to mention, I wasted about half an hour at the Prince Edward Hall looking for leads on how to get to the place.



The Alban Arena, the place where we were to get our robes. It was windy, and I dropped my confirmation e-mail that I had to bring for the day, and it got stained, and there was a slug stuck on it. Botherment.

So when I came to the Alban Arena, the first thing I had to do was head downstairs, where they had two stalls for ticket collection and robe rental. The people who were at Alban Arena by the time I came there... they were all preparing for their graduation ceremony which was at 2:00 p.m. (they were the Nursing and Midwifery students). Surprisingly enough, I got my tickets and my robe early!

The Ceremonies booklet and tix. In the envelope were my own ticket and two guest tickets, which I had paid for.

The robe rental stall. The people from J Wippell & Co, robemakers for (among others) Uni Hertfordshire. We queued up to get them. Now technically they didn't give robes to people whose ceremonies were much later — mine was at 7:00 p.m. — but since I already had the tickets, they presented the robe to me. So I'm the only person in the entire law school to have worn the robe for long hours! :D

Troisnyx, fully vested!



And I just repeated everything I wrote earlier.

The sea of people at the Alban Arena. It was insane to walk in and out.

Professional photographs were taken in the auditorium. But I passed them altogether. I was to go through a poor man's graduation. What's a poor man's graduation, you ask? I'll explain shortly. ;-)



Happy feelings and disdain get into the mix here. Blue prison bars!

I got back into the auditorium, it was full of people... A lot of whom were faces I had never frequently seen.

You think you got the best pictures, eh, photographers? Beat this! This was taken at the auditorium, and honestly, I prefer being natural to just posing for the backgrounds like a statue. And you get to see a little more of my cape, mortarboard and whatnot.

The helpers and ushers for the day were dressed in purple. Some of them were staff at the law school, while some came from other departments. Still university colours. Can't complain. :D

The one next to me is Nina. We knew each other from our A-Level years, but she was a direct entrant to Uni Hertfordshire in Year 3. We were especially close through these years.

It kinda felt bittersweet to see that people were bringing guests in droves... and by that time I was still alone.

The sands of time, gold and silver, they fall, and soon I shall be at my last breath.

There was a Students' Union stall set up selling Uni Hertfordshire merch. Much of it was particular to the graduation.

And here's the UH Alumni stall. I'll be joining the Alumni Association shortly. Technically, I'm still a UH student, but we're automatically entitled to be part of the Alumni as soon as we finish our first course. Case in point, the e-mail informing us about the Alumni Association came to all of us who had finished the LLB in May, although we were on the Legal Practice Course and/or Masters in Law.

There was a video being shot, "The Alumni Diaries", and it documented the thoughts of students graduating during this week. P.S. I am also part of this video!


This video should provide just a little bit more explanation about said film.

This is Clara. She and I have also been close throughout Years 2 and 3.

This is Collins. He and I are doing the Legal Practice Course together. We are part of a cohort of only 57. It's funny... doing the LPC and then revisiting one's steps during the LLB.

This is Lilian and her two sons. She is also one of my friends from the LPC cohort. I'd promised I would take the family picture for her... to disprove the idea that family pictures needed to be taken in a studio. I will admit, I love the second one.

The last picture makes it look as though we were frozen in time while the others moved around us.

The main entrance to Alban Arena. The UH light was on just for the week!

Down the High Street through to the road leading to St Albans Abbey. It was almost 6:00, and it was time for us to proceed.



The walk to St Albans Abbey. I was singing my favourite hymn of all time, Lead, Kindly Light, the words to which were penned by Blessed John Henry Newman. As you might tell, the weather was horrible. It was cold and windy, and not many of us could wear our graduation robes over our coats. Our capes and mortarboards were being blown all over the place, it was awful to hold the camera and keep my robes still.

At the Abbey, we were set out like this: the students were seated at the side aisles, by and large blocked by pillars, while the guests were seated at the centre aisles. Because some of us couldn't see much of what was going on from the side aisles (pillars!), there were screens nearby. The footage from the graduation was shown live.

The picture was taken by one of the Law School helpers. I forget the person's name (is it Asif??), but at any rate, I had met him on and off during my Years 2 and 3. Oh also, it's not that I have a downgraded cape. The white section of the cape got blown over by the wind!

I can only fix my eyes to you, Lord, even for a brief moment, when nobody else wants to think that you and all of Heaven are celebrating with us.

At around 6:30, Christo came, and I ran into his arms. I was overjoyed to see him! I passed him my camera so that he might be able to get one or two pictures in during the actual ceremony. Since only one ticket could be used, my other ticket was given up so that another person's family member could come and join in the celebration.

Right before the start of the ceremony. The Chancellor and Vice Chancellors, the Dean of the School of Law and the Law School lecturers were to process in academic dress.

I know this is kinda blurry, but I managed to point out a few familiar faces from the front. (Alliteration for the win.)

Another blurry picture, but one I decided to put up anyway. Essentially when Christo was taking this, I made a little salute to the camera before making my way up to the front. And yes, I was wearing heels.

Receiving my certificate. There were two phases: shaking the Chancellor's (?) hand, and receiving the certificate (apparently not from the same person). But at any rate, I was walking down from the sanctuary, a proud LLB graduate. And all that, without tripping on the sanctuary even once. Success!

It was a haze as the staff and students marched out in procession. Still, at least we can make out one face. : )

Back at Alban Arena...

I did the blessing gesture, yay! This was to be the last photo I would ever take in graduation robes for the day.  Between 9:00 and 10:00 p.m. we were to return our robes, if we rented them. Christo and I settled for cups of juice and snacks, and then after that, it was time for me to return the robes. I wanted to avoid the crowd, so I slipped out early.

The two of us then went to Nando's for dinner.

Our little happy birthday note to Mark Tanner, ex-member of Kingdom of Herts and still a very dear friend of ours.

Dare you point that finger at me again, Christo... He was holding my certificate, by the way, but it had a little casing, and the casing was reflecting the light...

We both had a great meal, spoke about Kingdom of Herts stuff, school and matters of faith. (Oh, by the way: his normal spice level was Medium and my normal spice level was Extra Hot, so today we settled for a fair compromise: Hot. And he actually enjoyed it!) It was great company, and I especially enjoyed that time.

By the time we got out of Nando's it had begun to rain. Heavily. No surprise there, considering the strong winds we had earlier. We walked back to the bus stop and waited until I caught the 602 back home.

So there it was. Our humble graduation ceremony.

The poor man's graduation

There's a simple reason as to why we call it the "poor man's graduation". Note, a lot of my working friends also took this. Now: robe rental and guest tickets come up to a pretty hefty sum. And as if that's not enough, there are the studio pictures.

We decided to forgo the student pictures, because of how expensive they were. The pictures that really mattered to us were the presentation pictures on the sanctuary, but those cost us a good £30, and postage, online download and even the slightest edits were charged. Good heavens. We all thought, hang on a second: we have Photoshop, we have RealPlayer if we were to convert videos, we have a good camera and two SDs, we might as well use them to our advantage! And we did! :D

Well, that's it for now. See you at a later point.

Student Recognition Evening 2012, in visuals

Previously on SRE (then known as Volunteer Recognition Evening/VRE) :

The grand winner that evening was Samuel Ong Ming Hoe.

And this year, because my still camera battery charger was either lost or stolen during my trip to Madrid in 2011, I have to rely on friends for pictures. I still had my trusty Flip camera to capture the moments.

Special thanks to Ong Jing Yi (Novis) and Ong Ming Hoe (Samuel) for the awesome pictures! :D

  

I have no idea why the name was changed, but I can say this: they did introduce new categories and new awards. It was different from last year's VRE, but it did have some elements from last year's event.

Just like last year's VRE, this event was by invitation only -- and served to honour the students who contributed, either to their societies or to the community beyond the university.

  

  

Upon entry, each one of us got this ticket and a UHSU pin. Well... the text on the ticket is self-explanatory. I needed a drink very, very much (having not drunk anything that morning and afternoon), so I was among the first to spend it on lemonade. In case you're wondering why there are two pins in the picture... Samuel (and I) went for VRE 2011 and SRE 2012, and on both occasions, got UHSU pins.

  

  

  

  

 

Wooooo Swing Dance! Having taken part in a few of their meetings in 2010/2011, I can say that I did enjoy myself back then, and it's always a joy to see them dance. ^_^

And now, the first category of awards for the night: the RAG awards.

  

  

  

  

And then, came Student Representatives.

  

  

    

Wow, that face is priceless! :D Great job, Novis!

  

This, guys..... THIS is one of the reasons why Samuel and Novis took the pictures that I have showcased in this blog entry. :P They were both nominated as Community Champion. Samuel (Ong Ming Hoe) was the star of last year's VRE.

  

  

Guys, really... did we need a break that early into the SRE? Or had time passed so quickly?
From that point on, I was very, very nervous. I knew the Media Awards would fall into the second half, and I just couldn't expect anything anymore.

  

Then there was a performance by the Salsa Society. Now, there aren't many pictures for this -- in fact, I know that my pictures are very selective, but there was only one in Novis' stock (and none in Samuel's stock). You can imagine that a lot of people had their eyes fixed on the dancers...... for pretty obvious reasons. But hey, I have every reason to take delight in carnal stuff too, if it's good! :D

By the way, the one on the right in this picture is Fawn Kay Lim, one of my schoolmates from my secondary years.

  

Then it was the turn of the Mayor of Welwyn Hatfield, Councillor Carl Storer, to go up and present awards. This time, he would be presenting awards for societies. Apparently Samuel didn't concentrate on the Mayor; he focused rather on the girl with "hair like Paramore's lead singer" who took snapshots of the event.

  

There was a new system in place which was introduced during one of our Societies' Federation Meetings. Essentially, there are a few things societies are recommended to do to reach out to the student community. Examples include writing something for UniVerse (for the uninitiated, that's the Student Union newspaper), and I don't remember what else. (That makes me a bad committee member! Nuuuuuu!) Doing more of these things gives a society Bronze, Silver or Gold Accreditation. There were a few societies who did reach the Gold mark this year, and they were awarded.

  

The Charity Fundraising Award was one that I looked forward to. Not because my society or I scored any nominations, no. One of my friends, who hosted Musical Explosion -- a gospel concert on 18 March in the Auditorium at the Forum (yes, you read correctly) -- came from RACE Fellowship, and I was rooting for him. Good on 'im, he did win! :D

  

  

And then..... Best Society. The Drama Society. No surprise there. Apparently half the audience went up! (Okay, maybe that's an exaggeration, but still. LOOK AT THE AMOUNT OF PEOPLE UP ON STAGE.)

  

Aaaand Best Society Collaboration. Again, no surprise there. ^_- Somebody get me a Gryffindor banner please?

  

Here's a society that literally rose out of the ashes: the Alternative Music Society. I had known them to be there ever since I first set foot in the University of Hertfordshire. But hearing what the commentators had to say... I am pretty impressed. They have music sharing sessions and live gigs pretty much every single week now.

  

Those of you who have missed the fun from 2011's Freshers' Fair: the Outdoor Society had only recently been set up when I came there. I remember them distributing flyers at the Freshers' Fair that time. I'm not sure if they were the ones into go-karting, but it didn't seem like they had much feedback. But one cannot judge feedback by the amount of people that appear at the Freshers' Fair. The Outdoor Society is now the Best New Society.

  

You know, I really don't know what the difference is between Society of the Year and Best Society anymore. This, friends, is Believers' Loveworld. Good on you guys!

Then came the media awards. The Deputy Vice-Chancellor was going to present the awards for this entire section. I paid attention to nearly all the speeches, but his speech.... well, his speech moved me to tears. I'll be linking the video in the playlist at the end of this post, but to put it succintly: a lot of people tend to focus on the winners without remembering that all the people who got in there were recognised and nominated. This one was different.

  

  

By this point I had stopped taking videos, because I did want to see in which direction the Media Awards would go. And then came Soapboxer of the Year. Yep, there are awards even for this blog too. I looked at the screen and went....

"ANNETTE SIGN? SERIOUSLY?"

I just burst out laughing. Well, way to have my surname Anglicised! :P

Yet I must say, I knew, deep in my heart, long before I came to the SRE -- in fact, the moment I was nominated, I just knew who was going to win. Just at the entrance to the Auditorium there was a banner displaying the achievements of the SU and the societies under its banner. And only one person was the face of Soapbox.

This person is.... *drumroll*

From deep within my heart, congrats, Kate.:D



Other things I especially took note of in the Media Awards were:

  

It came to me as no surprise that the UHSU Elections were the Best TV Programme of the year. The Elections tend to attract people across the university. They did so in 2011; they did it again this year. I know, because I stayed behind in the EleHouse to cover both Elections, and I'm sure many would agree with me that one would always find unexpected things in the Elections. In 2011 we had Martyn Gray being jumped on by Thom Palser and his fans. :P In 2012 we had someone from Hollywood Herts (a competing slate) who brought his drum into the EleHouse to rouse people's excitement.

  

It also came to me as no surprise that Crush Radio had the Best Media Committee.

  

Jamie (?) Cawthra, whose article on PIPA and the open Internet gained rave reviews, won the Best Feature.

  

Right before the Special Awards (the last category of awards) were dished out, there was a performance by the B-Boy and B-Girl Society. Now they're relatively new as well; having only been established in 2010. I know, because I met the founder at Freshers' Fair in 2010 and he was seriously considering setting this society up. They did contemporary dance -- no hip-hop, and their moves followed the lyrics of the song they were using. By the way, great shot there, Samuel! :D

  

  

Erika: "How do you pronounce this word? I had been practising this word all day....."

  

I tell ye, Soapbox has produced some really good stock! This is Kenny England, one of the pioneering six bloggers of Soapbox. We haven't seen him much on Soapbox these days, but he's moved on to achieve success in another field. Good on you! ^_^

  

A new award was introduced: the Union Fellowship Award. Essentially whoever won this would be the champion of the SRE. Our first Union Fellowship Award Winner ever is Ben Butters.

  

Welp, SRE wouldn't have been SRE without us, so...... you're welcome. : )

  

  

Guys, here are Samuel and Novis, the people whose photos I have used with permission.

  

  

Last year, people crowded to the Style Bar for cocktails and more entertainment. This year, it was pretty low-key except for the Ladies' Night going on in the EleHouse. All celebrations took place in the Auditorium proper, with free food to go around. And there was a band, 24 Pesos, performing live at the Attic (I think it was Thom who told us about it), and anyone with the UHSU pin could go up there free of charge. One of my friends went, so I followed. He left; I stayed on until the very end.

To end off, here is input from yours truly. I have managed to provide a little bit more video coverage on the SRE than before. Presenting the SRE 2012 playlist.


I had a great evening, and it was good to see faces old and new. It was a day off for me, a day of celebration. Thanks to those who nominated and voted for me (and for Musical Explosion! XD).

And this closes another chapter in the history of the UHSU, the societies and the volunteers. But closure of a chapter could mean the opening of several new chapters, right? We'll have to wait and see!