A haphazard chronicle of my inevitable misadventures during a year in Vietnam and points east.

p.s. I'll be pitifully grateful if you send me email during my exile: TravelerKaty@hotmail.com

October 2002 November 2002 December 2002 January 2003 February 2003 March 2003 April 2003 May 2003 June 2003 July 2003 August 2003 September 2003 October 2003 November 2003 February 2006 March 2006 May 2006

 
To preface this entry, I want to state for the record that I am a bona fide graduate of the College of William and Mary, Class of 1989. I received a perfectly legitimate leather-bound diploma at a ceremony witnessed by my parents and featuring a commencement speech by Glenn Close, W&M Alumna and midget in real life. My treasured diploma is currently safely enclosed in an unmarked box, cleverly concealed among dozens of other unmarked boxes, and stacked behind a couch, eight chairs, three end tables, television, computer, two floor lamps, microwave, turkish carpet, two table lamps, and assorted art and unboxed items, all sandwiched into an 8' by 10' storage unit in Tukwila.

Imagine my surprise, then, when told I would need a copy of my diploma to attach to any and all job applications here in Saigon.

Consequently, I spent much of yesterday afternoon forging my credentials.

At first I naively thought I could get a template off the web like I did with the resume I had written that morning. Turns out that diploma templates are treated more as illegal I.D. than regular documents, and are priced accordingly. In addition, many of the outfits doing fake diplomas (and there are an alarming number of these) want you to send them the information so they can make a fancy paper version that they will send you in 10 days. Not very workable, since I had a job interview the following morning.

So I decided to make my own. First I went to a site which featured a Novelty Diploma Generator -- meet the most recent graduate of Our Lady of the Britney Spears University. Then I cribbed all the old timey language from my newly minted A.U. degree and replaced all the Britney references to William and Mary. I then faced the daunting task of finding a university seal or crest to make it look fancy and legitimate. Unfortunately, William and Mary's website is excessively modern and functional, and I was unable to find a single copy-and-paste-able version of the university seal.

My next idea was to hunt for a convincing family crest, preferably with an incomprehensible Latin motto on it. As the internet gods were punishing me yesterday, something happened to some kind of important machines I think in the US, which slowed things to a glacial pace. Each page would take between 4 and 10 minutes to load, and since I was there without a book (I know, I can't believe it either), I was forced to annoy all of the other patrons with constantly tapping fingernails and heavy sighs.

The family crest route proved fruitless, as they included the family names themselves. I could use one as a last resort, but I really felt that my prospective employers might notice of the William and Mary crest had a big "O'Shaunessey" at the bottom of it. After hours of internet frustration, I located a very attractive and wordless Portuguese coat of arms that fit very nicely into the space between "College of William and Mary" and my name in an archaic and virtually unreadable font. After Harrison Ford (President) and Louis Pinella (Chairman, Board of Regents) affixed their (my) signatures and I copied it a couple times on a bad copier so it would look suitably parchment-like, I was good to go.

The good news is that the document passed muster and I am now officially employed. The bad news is that after seeing Mr. Nam's casual treatment of my new diploma, I think that nice O'Shaunessey crest might have worked out fine and saved me 3 hours. Live and learn.

© 2002 Katy Warren

posted by Katy at 2:44 AM