Friday, 22 March 2013

Pressure

“So, Carenza, Perran has made his choices.  What about you?”

“Mmm.”

The more we have thought about it, the more her firm and insurance choice seem obvious, and it would be simple now for her to log on to UCAS track, click a few buttons and move on.  It would take only seconds, but feels somehow momentous.  To rush it would be as indecorous as gulping down that first drink on your eighteenth birthday pub trip.

“I can’t do it tonight, Mum – I’m up at school giving a talk on applying to university – it’s an evening for year elevens on the value of higher education.”

Will she tell the prospective sixth-formers just how difficult it is to make the final choice having visited so many welcoming campuses and visualised oneself wandering the lanes of historic cities?  It must be like standing at a crossroads (possibly a multi-exit roundabout would be a more accurate analogy, but let’s not quibble) and seeing different “you”s walking away into different futures. 

“The time has come, Carenza, to place a metaphorical traffic cone in some of your exits, er, options.”

“What on earth are you wittering on about, Mum?  I’m back off up to school now.  I’ll see about UCAS Track at the weekend.”

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