A Road Not Taken

I haven't yet gone to see King Arthur, but I know I will have to soon.  I may not like the film, but I'm compelled to see it in the same way that I've been compelled to read everything I've ever found about Arthur even when it was the worst kind of schlock ever printed.
 
In a parallel universe somewhere, I have a Master's Degree in Arthurian Literature from the University of Wales in Bangor. (Here's a link in English for those of you who don't read Welsh.)
 
After I got my BA in "English Literature with a Writing Emphasis" (and a minor in Philosophy), I was all set to go to the very tip of Northern Wales to study something that would have qualified me to do not much more than teach nutcases like myself in turn all about Arthurian Literature. 
 
I was accepted to the school. I even had a dorm room assigned. I didn't go.
 
What happened? 3 things, I think:
 
1 - I did not get the financial aid I needed and did not want to be fiscally irresponsible and take out a loan just to get a degree that would not have made me any more money than I could have made by having a job where I had a nametag and asked repeatedly,  "Would you like fries with that?"
 
2 - I realized that Arthurian Literature was just that kind of vicious cycle I mention above - what would I do with the degree? Would it change the world? No. Even worse, would it turn the legend that I so adored into something sprawled and wriggling on a wall like a bug? Would it kill my love for the story? Would I become one more person who had turned a hobby into a chore?
 
3 - I didn't want to be that far away from my boyfriend.
 
I'm sure you can guess which of these reasons most influenced my decision.
 
The summer before I would have started the Masters program, a friend and I spent 3 months traveling from Britain to Greece via Eurail and Youth Hostels, and one of our first stops was for me to tell the Dean at Bangor that I would have to back out of attending the school.
 
I took a picture of the dorm where I would have stayed.
 
Okay, and I just have to add this. You know that many of King Arthur's men would have been Welsh, right? And that Lancelot (a much later addition to the legend) would have been French? So before I even see the film, I am really irked by the fact that the only Welshman in the cast is playing Lancelot. What's up with that? It's like Highlander, where they had an American-born, Swiss-bred actor playing the Scot, and the Scottish actor playing a Spaniard (with a rotten accent). Hollywood. Sheesh.
 
I'll probably see the movie this weekend. 
 
Because I have to.  
 
Even if my blog spellchecker wants to substitute "Arthurian" with "earthworms."