Nostalgia

Oh, NYU. Your French and French Studies, such fine graduate programs. Your location, so near so much excellent cheap food. But your scheduling of graduation, so... how shall I put this?

It's possible they'd sent an email about preregistering for graduation robes and that, feeling indecisive about going, I'd missed it. But when I went yesterday to seek out the robe, I found a tremendous, wrapped-around, hour-plus line's worth of graduates who'd also not figured this out. These are, to be clear, people who presumably managed not only to finish their coursework, but also to sort out the other bureaucratic hurdles needed to make it to graduation. I'm kind of thinking this might have been more clear. That maybe an email with something to do with the robe in the subject would have helped. That, or there was one, and I'm an idiot.

As per usual, this being NYU in its entirety, I didn't recognize a soul, in the line or surrounding crowd. I bonded with a married Orthodox couple, on line right ahead of me, waiting for their college graduation robes. (Their married-ness threw me off - I figured this was just a line for MA and PhD graduates. That this was also the line for undergrads helped explain its length.) I considered the various lunch possibilities for after, possibilities that got more and more practical as the hour-plus proceeded. First I was thinking, a last-time-at-NYU Sobaya splurge? ($9, but with tax and tip...) Then: Dos Toros? Then: Two Boots is so close and oh, how vividly I was picturing their plain slice. Those who were paying cash (still robes, not pizza) could go to the front of the line. Not happening to have $80 cash on me, I figured I'd just wait. Wait, while silently dreaming about this slice of pizza.

And then, finally! I'd made it nearly to the front, and someone came by to ask if anyone was getting a PhD, JD, etc. I thought I was in for some VIP treatment - that is, five minutes shaved off the month I'd been on this line - but no. The news was, they'd run out of these robes, I'd have to come back tomorrow.

On the plus side, Two Boots's plain slice was as good - and as cheap - as I'd remembered.