So, I'm not going to my graduation, again. While I was trying to figure out if I really wanted to pay $50 to hire robes and the funny hat and such, the due date for returning my little form has passed. Meh, I can think of better uses for fifty dollars... though I did think it might be a nice thing to do, just once... maybe when I get my masters ;)

Likewise, my scholarship offer has lapsed, so I couldn't take them up on the offer now even if I wanted to. Which I don't. Not really, anyway... and in the next week or so I'll have to let them know that I will not be taking up the offer for the honours year. Not yet... I'm tired of this educational system thing. Some real life, non-institutional education is what I need at this point.

At the same time, while I'm eager to get out of the system, the Boy has his in-road. He got offered his first preference, a degree to become a primary school teacher. After having applied to uni twice before and not receiving an offer, I guess I expected him to be a little happier than he is... I only partly understand what's going on here. I think over the past little while he's been realising how difficult it's going to be to support himself while he's studying... on top of this, I think he may have been reconsidering whether he actually wants to be a teacher anyway.

Something that I don't understand is why he can't even be proud for receiving the offer, and for his first preference, no less. Loads of people don't receive an offer at all, and the Boy has been part of that crowd a couple of times before... I kind of hoped it would at least make him feel a bit better about himself, knowing that he could do this if he wanted to, but when I asked him he replied "I know it should, but...".

About half of the students in my course were 'mature age', 30-somethings up to 50-somethings only just figuring out what they wanted to be when they grew up. It's not unusual... so I guess I don't really understand why the Boy feels that he should and must know right now where it is that he is going. Hell, I don't, and I don't intend to settle for anything that I'm not 100% settled on because of some over-rated social clock dictating where I 'should' be by age 25. Fuck that. I think in the Boy's case, some of it his pressure from his mother (though I don't think that has a huge bearing really) and most of it is pressure he's putting on himself, some kind of sense that he's wasting his life and should be doing something more 'worthwhile'. The problem is, if he's not completely sold on what he's doing, if he's not really happy with it and truly wanting it, he's probably not going to do very well at it, which will probably in his mind confirm his worst beliefs about himself.

Anyway... there's not much I can do. He's a big boy now, needs to make his own decisions, and right now he's feeling the weight of a big decision but I cannot share the burden. All of that does not stop me from caring and wanting things to work out for him. It's weird, I have no idea what my place in his life is anymore. We're going our separate ways, for the year at least, and I know that even if I were here there would be very little I could do to help him... it's hard to let go. I think there may have even been a part of him that wanted to miss out so that he could come to Japan too... but I think I always knew that this is the way it would go.

So... I'm trying not to let his decision weigh on me too because there's nothing I can do anyway, though my heart does feel a little heavy. I guess there's also the fact that we're leaving our house in 15 days, which is a bit sad. The Boy is out cutting our waist-length grass with our neighbour's push-mower, not a fun task but perhaps better than paying for a gardener. I may tackle weeding the front yard later, maybe... but for now, I'm getting back into the packing. It always takes me a while because I find myself looking through the photos and reading the letters and examining everything that I've hoarded... I think perhaps this time though, it may take even longer, as I know that some of this stuff will be left behind for a year, in storage somewhere while I and my bare essentials are in Japan. It doesn't matter that I'd look at it less than once a year anyway... and then the important task of deciding which of my books need to come with me... my head hurts.

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