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On Monday 16th July 2007 I graduated from Warwick University. I achieved a 2.ii in Mathematics, and I falsely assumed that this would be the proudest award I would receive for at least a week. Not so - during the afternoon, when gowns were slipping and mortar-board tassels were unravelling, we were working our way outside of complementary strawberries and cream in the Maths Department when a speech was announced. We sauntered round to 'The Street' to hear Colin Sparrow, Head of Department, do the usual spiel about acclaimed universities and being members of an elite group and so forth. After a little while, he mentioned awards; every year some half-dozen of the 300 maths graduates are given special recognition for their outstanding work - particularly insightful fourth-year projects, or an exemplary approach to a research problem, for instance. So imagine my surprise, as a decidedly average Maths student, to be the first called forward. Now I knew it had nothing to do with mathematical ability - I've been pretty consistently non-outstanding for a solid three years as far as academic studies are concerned, but I couldn't conceive of any other reason for being picked out.
By now I suspect you have guessed - I was proudly presented with a grotty little potted cactus for my sterling efforts to imaginatively relabel local specimens of modern art. It seems that in a slack moment Prof. Sparrow had done a search for 'Warwick Maths' on YouTube, and happened across my work. And, luckily for me, came down on the due-credit-and-recognition side of the fence instead of the legal-action-and-compensation alternative. By scrolling just a little further down, you may see not only photographic evidence of my award (well, a picture of me holding a cactus, surrounded by real mathematicians), but also, to allay the scepticism of the least gullible, a video taken of the presentation by my own dear father.
| Receiving
the Award (Click on the picture for the video - 37Mb wmv) |
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