August; B’mouth Interview; Bye-Bye Teesside
Here we are in August, at last. I know it’s just after the middle of the year, but it always seemed like the middle to me… August brings days on the beach, occasional rain, lazing about in shorts, many birthdays (including my own, huzzah!) and a middle-mark to this enourmous haitus from Education. Unfortunately August also brings heat, and the heat brings with it sleeplessness, so here I am writing this at 4:30 am. I hate night-time, yet lately I have been squandering my day-time.
Below (link) I mentioned that I would be writing my reference for Bournemouth University. This is all done now and is, in fact, the main reason for this update: I have been invited for an interview there on Tuesday, so I’m hoping that goes well. Naturally I will post up here what happened for the small collective of people that read this.
On a related note, I am pretty annoyed (read: disgusted) with Teesside University right now. Before I continue, I must say that their facilities are brilliant, their lecturing staff for games programming excellent (with a few exceptions), and overall I loved every minute I was there. Yes, even despite Middlesbrough. However, what they excel in is let down by their totally rubbish administration. Not only did they forget my payment details for my rent (resulting in much financial aggravation which is still haunting me), but they refused to disclose my results (so I received them late), and I hadn’t heard anything about my Masters application for nearly two months. About a week ago I received an application pack for Masters through the post! Evidently they lost my application. However, no more than 20 minutes later I found out from a friend that they’d contacted him and told him all Masters were cancelled. Amazing. Absolutely amazing.
The power of semi-paralysed monkeys with calculators and typewriters will never cease to amaze me. They can send out application forms and use telephones. Shocking.
This is sad news in a way, though. Admittedly after the discovery that Bournemouth was a possibility, I had decided that it would be a better place to go. The reasoning behind this was simple: it offers the better course and that’s all that matters. Also, there was only a small chance that the one at Teesside would be running, so in the end I simply resigned myself to the fact that I will never go back to study at Teesside again. After all the mess I’ve been through with them lately, there was a time when I was overjoyed about this, but it’s really kicking in now that I will miss my friends and our escapades in Mordor Middlesbrough. Before I knew that I was choosing not to go back, but now that choice has been taken away. It sounds silly, I know, but there’s a small yet crucial difference.
Oh well… Always look forwards, I guess! Onwards, to Bournemouth! Arrr.