A Movement

No, this has nothing to do with bran muffins. Relating to the university experience, it means that things are starting to kick into gear. Apparently I can't choose my courses until June, but now I'm told I can't do it online either. My situation, vis it being a second degree, requires the active participation of a senior advisor - because of the transferability of the specific electives from my first degree. To be honest, I'm happier with this anyway; I was kvetching over the online process, which to an old fart like me was starting to feel a little gangly. So now I wait for contact from the advisor. I really want to make my choices so I can buy my books and start reading. As an older Tortoise, I need an extra head start!

I did some gardening this week, washed the car. That, of course, as summer follows spring, led to yesterday's rain.

Part of me is wondering if I should open a Facebook page. I don't know what it's all about, you see, and it's possible that I should - considering that I'm shooting for a second career in communications. As a mature individual (sic!) without all the facts I may question the need for all of these outlets, but I have a feeling that I'm going to need to know about them in the future. My main concern is Facebook's record on privacy. I suppose that's something I should plan to grow out of.

Hey! Kudos to Global's Josh Groberman today - for correcting a grammatical faux pas on air. He said "traffic is moving pretty good" and corrected it immediately to "pretty well". It is refreshing to see someone who is self-aware enough to know what they're saying, and honest enough to correct themselves when they mis-step. I hold professionals to a higher standard anyway, so it's especially gratifying for me when they hold themselves equally accountable. Too many times our television professionals prostitute their grammar in the name of charisma. I believe you can be accurate and correct, and charismatic - all at the same time! So
kudos, Josh, let's go for coffee!

J

Sunshine

Waiting at Starbucks for my Caramel Macchiatto. I like Starbucks - it's a modern day church. The wine is coffee, the bread is a variety of tasty little treats, the pews are comfy leather seats, and the Hymnal is a copy of Coffee News or some other local periodical. It's a place to be serene and contemplative (at least if you're by yourself) - like church, but better.

I've seen a variety of emotions since I arrived: hugs, handshakes, smiles, impatience, anxiety, calm, and if I look myself in the mirror, introspection.

The couple closest to me (Americano, grande x 2) are clearly embroiled in a sales pitch of some kind. I've heard the words "how much time", "what cost". Lots of hand movements. A professional duet.

The couple along the outer wall hugged when they met. Mere colleagues don't usually do that, so theirs must be a personal encounter. Doesn't appear to be illicit in any way, and they seem too distant to be family so I'm guessing that they're former colleagues having a little reunion.

The trio near the door are having a meeting. "Paul" and the two girls (they are quite loud) are enjoying their tall beverages and having some kind of formal discussion - all three are chattering, taking notes, nattering, taking notes. Being productive.

At the far side of the chapel a job interview is underway - not for a Starbucks position (I'm sure Starbucks would do that sort of thing in the Parson's chambers), but for some other place, time and activity. "What would you say is the most important..." "Do you have any experience handling..." and so on.

It's truly amazing what can be accomplished in church when the din from the pulpit is distributed more evenly.

School. A card arrived yesterday - some initial instructions - how to check online for instructions on how to pick courses and who to call. I'll log in later today to see what it's all about. The last course descriptions I looked at were from last year, so I imagine they've updated them since. I'm looking forward to getting my reading list and getting stuck in to the material, even on my own.

I'm having guests for dinner tonight - that'll be nice.

My car is still in the shop, sitting, doing nothing. No answers from Ford. It's been nearly a month. It's time to escalate. I phoned at 930 - said I want to know what's going on by 1030. If they don't call me by then I will phone their head office and insist upon my rights. I don't like "escalating", but sometimes it must be done and I'm certainly not afraid to do it.

Sunny today, 21C. Nice.

J

Oil Change

This old fart is getting some stuff done this morning. I make this egg thing at home like one of those big fast-food restaurants but better because of the love, and it was really good. For years I haven't been a breakfast person, but since being laid off I've had the time to put something together in the morning so I've sort of gotten into the habit. I like the egg thing - that and a real cup of coffee. For years I've done instant, but it's really not as good.

Anyway, getting things done. I'm at the dealership getting an oil change. That's hard work, for someone, not me. The staff were very nice when I got here - calling me by my first name and everything. This is mostly because they messed up my last job so badly (it's still not finished) that I had to explode at all four levels of management. Hopefully, the other job starts to reconcile tomorrow. That's a long story - perhaps for another day.

I'm still waiting for correspondence from the University. I think I'll Email them to make sure I'm understanding the process correctly; I don't want to miss out on the best courses. I'm still excited to be going back, even with the hardships it will cause. It'll be strange, but invigorating, and it will be nice to have focus again.

Gas has gone up again. Not here, but I'm sure it will soon enough. I just don't understand how that works... When oil goes up, gas goes up pretty much immediately. When oil goes down, gas stays up - at least until they're absolutely certain that oil won't be going up again. I don't care if the oil companies set the price together - after all, Coke and Pepsi cost about the same amount, too. What I wish is that their pricing strategies were more honest and transparent. It's an industry that benefits at both ends - production and consumption - and that just doesn't seem right. They need PR people. Governments of both Canada and the U.S. have both had enquiries, or at least "donut and coffee", to try to figure this thing out, but that's really like the wolf watching the chicken coop, isn't it? I mean the government benefits from the higher prices too - in higher taxes - so what incentives are there for the government to be honest? It's all a great, big revenue pie with lots of filling, and tons of cream, but which is not really meant to be enjoyed by the consumer.

Anyway, enough for today.

Sunny, 19C.

It's a Slice

Had a wonderful day yesterday, until I tried to cut my finger off. I bought a new knife a couple of weeks ago - a small sudoku thing - very sharp and much lighter than the one I'm used to. Then, as I was making salad I guess it got away from me and took a little chunk off the tip of my finger. It could have been worse, of course, though typing will be interesting for a while.

Where was I? Oh yes, the old hardware and peripherals. As I recall, it was a very optimistic time. Not easy, because my York years - for all sorts of personal and developmental reasons - were some of the toughest of my life. No, optimistic because even though the studying and the personal stuff were tough, and the tools I had to deal with the personal issues were somewhat wanting, there was always the sense that things could be dealt with. There was always a sense of looking for the solution, and a belief that it was definitely out there.

I suppose those years are tough for everyone. Just cresting childhood, trying to merge onto the freeway of life without crashing into everything already on it; trying to establish yourself in a lane and hoping for trouble-free travel. Trying to reconcile the things and times that defined the boy but don't necessarily fit the man; weeding out the needed from the un-needed, defining what the man will be.

The dot matrix lasted a few years then went in the trash. The new printers didn't require the paper with the perforations on the side - and were much faster. The computer lasted a while longer, in fact I believe it came with me to Calgary when I moved after graduation. Of course, it was already obsolete, but as long as that power supply still worked I was reluctant to throw it away.

Leaping forward to today you really get a sense of how much technology has changed. Thinking about the difference between the dot matrix and the laser, the typewriter and the laptop, the rate of growth in technology has been truly remarkable. I mean, I have enough hard-drive capacity today to swallow up my first computer - without doing the math - what, 10,000 times? Remarkable.

That's going to be one of the big questions as I get ready to return to school - what kind of technology do I need to do it right? Whether I invest in a tablet or not will depend on what books are available digitally, if any. A purchase like that will need a pretty solid business case, after all my income will be zero while I'm in school.

Stay tuned.

J

Overcast, showers.  10C

In the Past

I'm not much of a poet, but occasionally I may try to conjure something up out of the old ether. At York I actually managed to pen quite a few works of - well, intensity. I re-read them now and then, and I cringe, but part of that cringing is the memory of the intensity so I let it slide. It's like looking at old photos - seeing the fashions we used to wear. Hard to do, hard to take, but rewarding in its own way.



Hey York, this is a plug, so please - 
no copyright issues.



Speaking of York, or as we used to call it - Yuk U...   One of my main concerns in going back to school at 46 is not that I won't remember how to be a student; memories of my first university experience are still quite crisp in my mind. No, my main concern is in how different it will all be. I mean, think about it: a lot has changed since I graduated in 1990.

For example, I started my first experience using an old IBM electric typewriter - Selectric, I think they called it. I typed and re-typed my breadth assignments ad nauseam - draft after draft - then finally a good copy for submission. I used carbon paper to ensure that I had a copy of the essay for my own records. After a while I found a smaller typewriter to work on - with a corrector ribbon. This saved me a little time - all I had to do is press the red button and the built-in memory would initialize and type in white right over the last character I typed. I think I could erase up to 20 characters that way. That was clearly a tremendous time saver, and a paper saver - resulting in a net benefit to my supplies budget. In my third year I got my first computer. Do you know, I forget the make, but it was this really compact little thing - a desktop model about 1-foot by 1-foot by 5 inches high. The monitor sat right on top - a sexy monochrome display which was so much better than all those old-school, electric-green dumb terminals. I had to make payments - that was the only way I could afford it. I think it had a whopping 100mb hard drive - something like that, and it came with the latest of peripherals - like a hot, new dot-matrix printer with paper that fed through automatically. I was so cool. Needless to say, the computer really saved me a lot of time - now I could do all my editing, then press print. Now, I said to myself, there is no excuse for turning in anything less than perfect. Now I would be a straight-A student. As if it had been technology's fault up until then.

To research I read my Collier's Encyclopediae at home, and visited the Yuk U library every day for  additional information. I also took the time to check the microfiche for either the most current periodicals or the oldest references available, depending on what was called for. That was the neatest thing! Microfiche: thousands of pages of almost completely irrelevant information in a compact, plastic card format. Spin the knob, slide the bar and zoom in and out - that was high-tech. The internet was not known when I started school, and even by the time I finished it was not fully understood. It was nebulous. It was like TV - interesting, but how could it possibly catch on and be anything useful?

Yes, a lot has changed since I was last in school, and if I'm honest I have to ask if I'll be able to catch up, and then keep up. I have this laptop thingy to work with (I'm working with it now), I have the internet of course, which actually did take off, I have a laser printer and the most recent word processing software. I'm switching to an iPhone later this month and am considering purchase of a tablet - the latest thing - to enable reading of dowloaded texts instead of the paper versions and to make my carry-on luggage lighter because after all this clunky, 2-year old laptop really is quite onerous to move around - being at least six or seven pounds in weight.

Decisions, decisions.

Today I'm off to a car show. Winter appears to be behind us - we're talking millimeters instead of centimeters, so the classic cars are out and about. It's Saturday and I'm still excited about my upcoming university adventures.

J

Mostly cloudy, showers.  9C.

Semi-Inaugural

Another wonderful day. I tried speaking to Creativity again, but he was having none of it, so I hooked up with Lethargy instead. Lethargy and his friend, Apathy.

Sometimes we must look after stuff. Oh, it would be nice if the life-ocean were all plain sailing, but it seldom is - there's always something to be looked after, some detail to attend to. That detail, today, was repair to my little car. They've had it (THEY being unnamed until I get really annoyed) for three weeks now, and the original problem still persists. How do we reconcile this?

On top of this they got their big, clumsy jackboots inside my little car and tramped around until she's some kind of mud pit. There's mud and grease on the floor, on the driver's seat, on the driver's door pocket! And there's coffee spilt on the centre console.
Who needs this? If I wanted an F350 I'd, oh I don't know - buy an F350!

They're going to look after it. I told them I expect it to be detailed to within an inch of its life. It's the least they can do.

Oh, on the school thing - I'm waiting for a mailing from the University so I can pick my courses. Life goes on in the meantime, but I'm waiting.

Watching some hockey.

More tomorrow.

Mostly cloudy, rain. 15C.

Inaugural

This all began quite some time ago, so without going into too much detail a little background is in order.

I popped out in 1965. I understand it was a noisy affair, with much crying, gnashing of teeth and general hullabaloo - and that was even before I was born! Since then I've been the recipient of numerous benefits (blessings, you might call them) and a not inordinate number of challenges. In the people I've known, the experiences I've had, and the joys I can relate I've been somewhat fortunate, and I am very grateful for that.

I am proud to say that I was the first in my family to get a degree. I still don't know how I managed to graduate in 1990 - some kind of divine bullheadedness, I suppose, or just a steadfast refusal to face facts, but somehow I managed to sneak on to the Dean's list in the final year of an English degree - something of which I am extremely proud.

That led me - don't ask me how - to a 23 year career in the insurance industry. "But James," I hear you cry, "why on earth wouldn't you use your English degree to teach?" "That would have made sense, wouldn't it?" I reply, "but in my youth I just wasn't set up - emotionally - to teach, so the thought just never occurred to me. Or it occurred to me but was quickly dismissed."

No, I fell into insurance while I was still working my way through university, and when I graduated they asked me to stay on and I said yes. You must remember, at the time, post-grads were happy to work in the fast-food field, so I considered a salaried job a lucky break.

Over the past, oh, ten years or so, I have suffered the odd guilty inclination to perhaps do something else - to go in a different direction. I mean, insurance is an honourable profession for the most part, but it absolutely kills creativity, and if there's anything I wanted to be all my life it's creative.

So occasionally over the years I have fantasized about what I might be able to do and be more creative in the doing. The fantasies never amounted to anything more than speculation until last summer when I was laid off from my job, and was suddenly forced to think about my future.

That was when the aforementioned notions of creativity started jumping up and down in my brain again. At first they were just calling out to me, little whispers like, "Hey, remember me?" Then the whispers re-doubled, escalated, grew and grew until I was overwhelmed by a tremendous cacophony of creative sound and fury. "This is the time," they averred, "the circumstances are there, this is your chance. Carpe Diem!"

The circumstances didn't add up right away - there were things in the way - emotional and physical things that had to be moved in defence of the greater hope. There was work to do, and as anyone who has been through such paradigmatic shifts knows, it doesn't happen overnight. Not only did I have to deal with the lay-off and all its emotional effects, but I had to decide what shape my future should take. I had to face all my doubts and anxieties - I mean what if I was wrong - perhaps I should stay in insurance, perhaps I haven't tried hard enough; the lay-off wasn't my fault, but perhaps there was more I could have done to prevent it.

I got over this, and went searching for the old creativity - the one in me which I believed that the insurance industry had murdered. I went searching; I listened to a lot of classical music - really listening, hearing it like I hadn't heard it in years. I wrote: I wrote blogs for the SPCSA (a little creative diversion which has kept me sane in dark moments), and for myself. I cooked, trying new recipes almost every day because after all I enjoy cooking, and it's not like I didn't have the time. I pulled out my old poems, and tried to reconnect with my younger self by recollection of what I was thinking when I first wrote them. That didn't actually work, but the mere doing caused a considerable synaptic realignment, leading to an unrecognized tingling as neurons bumped and grinded, and old memories surfaced - some for the first time in decades. Finally the juices had started to flow once again.

That's when I found the old creativity again. He was huddled up in a deep sleep, under a large rock near the bottom end of the right cerebral cortex. He looked bedraggled. He obviously hadn't combed his hair in years - it was clear that he had given up on the idea of ever being needed again.

"Hello there," I said, "I know you!"

"I don't, I, uh, -..." he replied, sitting up slowly and rubbing the sleep from his eyes. I remembered him as being somewhat more eloquent.

"I'm James." I said. "You used to call me Dipshit."

"I did?"

"Yes, don't you remember? 'Wake up, Dipshit, get on with your work!'"

"I seem to recall - "

"Hey Dipshit, you've got work to do."

"Yes, it might be - "

"That deadline's tomorrow, Dipshit. You'd better get at it."

It took several more of these old memories before he finally caught up with me. He yawned, stretched, looked me right in the eye and said:

"Yes, you know I DO remember you. Where the hell have you been?"

It was a long story for him, too, beginning with the calamitous day when I first popped out.

"You got me through University," I said.

"Yes, I did, and you haven't even said hello to me since!"

"Well, sorry, but I didn't have the time. Hello, you are needed again, so you'd best make yourself look smart."

"What's going on?"

"We're going back to University."

"York?"

"No, U of C."

Sitting up taller now, he yawned again and said:

"What are we taking?"

"We're doing a BA in Communications Studies."

"And U of C have agreed to this?"

"Definitely."

"Without blackmail?"

"Absolutely."

He looked me right in the eye.

"Why Communications?"

"Because it is more in keeping with the central purpose in our life."

"Which is?"

"To be creative." I smiled.

"About effing time you came to that conclusion!" he grunted.

"I know. Sorry about that, but at least you're well rested."

This blog will be to chronicle the University experience of a "mature" (and I used the word loosely) student. School is a young person's world - always has been and always will be. University is a young person's learning place. When an old fart like me braves that world there are bound to be incongruities and clashes of culture, belief, and expression. I look forward to experiencing these, and to chronicling them in a near-daily blog of thoughts, feelings, experiences and activities of the involved and controversial kind.

So stay tuned for the perspectives of an Old Fart on returning to school. Witness the doddering, the drooling, the heaving and panting. View the struggles of an old fart amongst youngsters, the machinations and ministrations of a senior among juniors. Observe the angst of loss and gain, the positive pain of intense inculcation, the search for knowledge and bran muffins.

Cloudy. 12C.