Open Day

An early start today as EW1 arrived at mine so we could join The Eldest on an Open Day tour of Manchester Metropolitan University. 

She started the day considering a film making course and finished it mulling over a potential English/Film or Film/Media Studies combo. I think either of the latter ones would be a better fit for her. Whilst she enjoys film, she is not a film maker and I could feel her tense up as she next to me during a showing of some example work by current students - which was excellent by the way - and rather than being inspired by it, I could tell that it had had the opposite effect.

Me? I sat there, uncontrollably sobbing internally as I realised that I had wasted my professional life doing something that sure, paid ok, but would never light me up spiritually like the creative arts. I thought of Jeano, who had taken the leap as a mature student to sign up to a film making course and was jealous once more.

We moved around the city-based campus (I snapped this one of Grosvenor Park at the heart of it), which both me and EW1 agreed would be perfect for The Eldest, and then before a caesar salad lunch which would stay with me for the rest of the day and not in a good way, we made our way to the aforementioned English/Film/Media Studies talk, which was great and did seem to light up The Eldest. I hope she goes for it.

Again, I sat there as a very charming, erudite professor informed the masses that if they went for the degree with his, they would spend the next three years talking about all my favourite interests. By this point, my internal sobbing had progressed to repeatedly smashing my head against the bench in front of me. To her credit, EW1 tried to convince me that it wasn’t too late, but I think those nice people who collect my mortgage each month may disagree.

The most important thing from the day is that The Eldest has a better handle on where her future studies lay. I sincerely hope that she ends up at MMU studying some sort of Film/English/Media combo as I think the subject(s) combined with the surroundings will be the making of her.