Ah, University Shopping

Today was my first day at my 'new job'. We toured for a young girl and her father from Ontario, and another young girl and both her parents from Tokyo. They were all visiting Montreal to check out a university prospect for their daughters' futures. Many, many questions from the parents, silence and white faces from the prospective students.

I seriously kind of got choked-up about this. It brought me back to when my parents and I university shopped when I was finishing high school.

See, I'm from a small town with no universities in sight. So where I come from, reality is that if you want to get a higher education, you're leaving town come graduation. This is the same reality for parents: if you want your eye-apples to get an education, your going to have to say good-bye come graduation. High school convocation is a right of passage in Dauphin. It means it's time to fly. Those that don't go right after high school, usually don't go at all. Which is fine, except Dauphin does not have a lot to offer young adults.

So, off we went to shop for my future. Both parents took the day off work, and I the day off school. First up, BU in Brandon, Manitoba. I easily remember this experience, it was the day after my 18th birthday...I slept all the way there...'nuff said. We looked at dorms and classrooms, talked to an advisor and went out for lunch. It was an interesting option.

Next up, UofM in Winnipeg. My mom and I hit the road for this one a few weeks after Brandon. The place didn't stand a chance after I saw the stoplight on campus and giant parkade. We didn't even bother going to the information session in the afternoon; if this campus was big enough to need stoplights, it was way too big for this country girl to make it. So instead of going to the info session in the afternoon, we went to Red Lobster (ah, those were the days!) to celebrate the decision: Brandon it was! Smaller campus and closer to home, to be honest, these were the deciding factors.

I was to move in with my older cousin on Cornell Bay in Brandon. My home town was just two left turns from there; 200kms mind you, but it was just two turns and then a straight shot home.

I remember the first days of university like it was yesterday. My mom drove me in to Brandon to drop me off. It was like kindergarten all over again. She knew I had to go, I knew I had to go, but neither of us were ready for it. We drove into the 'city' the night before, and slept in the same bed...We talked 'til like 4:00 in the morning. We talked like girlfriends do at sleepovers, giggling and laughing and staying up way too late. I honestly feel like that night we transitioned from mother-daughter friends, to friends that were mother and daughter. In the morning she dropped me off at orientation, then proceeded to fill my apartment cupboards with food, printer with paper, closet with laundry soap.... I, on the other hand, hated orientation. First off, they didn't have my name on the list, so I was thrown in with some irrelevant-to-my-interests group and had to wear a hand-bombed name tag. I eventually left. I cried to my mom, she talked me through it, then we went to the mall, then out for dinner. Then, oh then, it was *that* time. The moment that took 18 years, 7 months, and 1 week in the making. The moment when my mom had to leave. At this very moment it would be official: I was moved out. I was at university. I lived in Brandon. My mom was leaving *my* apartment, to drive 200kms home.

Then, she left.

It was official.

I cried.

I found out later she cried all the way home, too.


Let me ensure you, I was not on my *own* at that point. Very far from it, in fact. Because of my parents hard work and value of education, their children were merely asked to strive for their dreams, while they did everything in their power to help make it possible.

Thank you mom and dad, without you I would have never made it.
Without your encouragement, I would have never gone.


And probably nor would those two young girls I toured around today.