Graduation

Graduation ceremonies are on the school schedules across Japan. As a teacher at these various schools, I am expected to be present at these formal occasions. It was only a few years ago that I attended this type of ceremony as a student, now I am sitting in the teachers section looking all serious and official. This was the case during the graduation ceremony at the computer college I teach at on Friday mornings.
I was told beforehand to arrive in a shirt and tie and look presentable. I did my best to appease the powers that be, but I'm sure I didn’t make a favourable impression with my rumpled shirt which hadn't been ironed since the early 90s and my unruly, wild hair sticking out at ridiculous angles on account of oversleeping that morning. I was shepherded into a large room by a teacher and as I entered I knew I had to drastically improve my dishevelled rag-tag look because the seated senseis were all immaculately attired with not a crease in-sight. The students, who sat in rows in the centre of the room, were all dressed in black and made an effort to craze-up their hair-styles into various odd shapes. Everyone made an effort, whereas I looked like I had just wrestled a sumo wrestler and got battered.
I quickly darted to the teacher's section and took a seat in the corner. I wanted to be out of sight whilst I tucked in my shirt and adjusted the belt on my trousers.
As I was fixing my shaggy hair into a respectable side-parting, the piercing tootling of a flute began to play through the loudspeakers in the room, signalling the beginning of the ceremony. Everyone stood up as the stern headmaster came sauntering through the door. I stood up and noticed the flies of my trousers were gaping open with my blue shirt hanging out of it. I wrenched it shut with a yank, startling the old bespectacled teacher next to me. I bowed to him, hoping that would explain everything. He gave me the once over with a baffled expression and resumed acknowledging the head-teachers presence who was now greeting the teachers and students. The Headteacher then gave a long speech punctuated by finger pointing and bowing. I was glad I couldn't understand what was being said because everyone in the room looked utterly bored. The ceremony kicked off when the certificates were distributed to the students. They each had to walk stiffly towards the headmaster's pulpit whilst Vivaldi's Four Seasons was playing through the speakers around the room. They then bowed to each section of the room and accepted the certificate with a rigid nod of the head to the headmaster. This formality lasted about one minute. But there were 30 students graduating so it felt like an eternity. I wanted one renegade student to break this monotony by bounding to the front of the hall doing cart wheels and back-flips. This, of course, never happened and we had to be subjected to this sleep-inducing ceremony.
When each student received their certificates, I was willing the headmaster to say, "Now that this shits over, let's paaaaaaarty!!" and a 70s funk band would appear from behind the curtain and begin jamming. Instead, more damn speeches were spoken. What was worse, other teachers were getting up to make long speeches. This was made even more unbearable by the central heating, turned up to such a level that it made the room feel like a furnace. I was also desperate for the toilet and constantly squirmed in my seat during these excruciating speeches.
It was all I could do to get up and howl with joy when these speeches finished one hour later, and when they did I observed the Headteacher giving a few concluding remarks. He finished with a bow and smiled to the crowd. This surely was the end, so I got ready to leave. I was half-way out of my chair when an ancient looking man with a bent back came hobbling towards the front.
This was too much to bear and I sat back down with an irritable sigh. What possible pearls of wisdom could this decaying fossil spout? I was contemplating doing everyone a favour and knocking out the wobbly old geezer with a flying kick.
10 minutes later he finished his croaky speech which finished the proceedings and I bolted to the toilet to piss torrentially.