The first time (and every subsequent time) I did one of those I found that my thoughts kept drifting to the faculty members of Unseen University... which meant that I had to very firmly stop myself from laughing aloud.

You will almost certainly be asked again - they like to keep the numbers as high as possible (creates the right impression for the family and friends of the graduates) and most people don't like doing it on the grounds that the only thing more boring than sitting through your own graduation is sitting through someone else's gradutation as one of my colleagues put it.

I feel that it's important for me to attend my students' graduations as it shows that I respect the work they've put into succeeding. Unfortunately very few staff here in Iceland seem to think this, and I regularly find myself as the only representative of the faculty at graduation here.