Do it

It's hard to get going this morning. Oh, I don't mean that I'm sitting watching TV or anything like that - I have actually been accomplishing things since I got here at 645am. Just not critical, academic things. Things instead like this blog, like taking photos off my cell phone and putting them on the laptop, like breakfast and a compliment to A&W via their website. Useful, time-wasting, procrastinatory things like that.

Gratuitous empty library shot

Actually, and in my defense, I do have a half-assed headache today. It's weather-related, I think - and this library is incredibly dry. It's also one of those days when I don't know whether or not to wear my glasses. Oh, and I walked two complete loops around the library to find the ideal desk. You get the picture: I'm absolutely bound and determined that today I will be at my decisive, unequivocal best. I think.
Don't worry, I'll get things done. As soon as this blog is out I'll spend an hour going over the Communications material for tomorrow's quiz. Then I'll study for Tuesday's General Studies quiz. After that, perhaps I'll sketch the framework of the upcoming PowerPoint assignment, the questions for the interrog - er, interview - I'll be conducting on November 10th, and finish the Technical Communications quiz that is due on Tuesday. And then I think, for the final hour before my 2 o'clock class, I'll read ahead in Political Science.

Boy! There's always something to be getting on with, isn't there?

J

In the eye

With the first round of quizzes, exams and assignments behind me I'm enjoying a short calm in the proceedings just now - the eye of the storm, if you will. But it will not last long. The next wall is fast-approaching and it promises to be every bit as intense, if not more so, than the first.

I am awash with anxiety. Where I did well I have to keep doing well. Where I didn't do very well I have to try harder and somehow get there. At the same time I must keep trying to network, to volunteer where I can (in the most efficacious places), and - most important - to allow my head time to clear once in a while - to take time to veg. Add to this that my best friend has this week had a diagnosis of cancer that has knocked the socks off of all of us, and hopefully you can see how the screw is definitely turning...

Anyway, I'm in it now, and it's on.

So now, I dedicate the rest of this school year to Marc - my best friend of 21 years.

J

Early

I've been away. Which is to say that I've been working my $&/)\#!! off on midterms and papers. Results have been coming in. That's always intense: the heartbeat just as you open the exam book or click "my grades" online.

I've decided I won't be doing any more online courses. It's not that I don't have the discipline, it's that other things just seem to take precedence - things where it was a face and a name that told you what to do. The anonymous online instruction just seems to just stay in the background. Oh, the deadlines are still there, but you [read, "I"] always seem to hit to hit them running with the words "holy crap, that's due next week!" or a derivative thereof.

I've been thinking about this blog over the past week. It seems fairly easy to think of things to write for it, and I enjoy doing it. So why, I ask myself, couldn't I think of things to write over the past twenty years? It's exasperating. Was it work that shut me down? Insurance certainly is a creativity killer. Is it a coincidence that I started writing the moment I knew I was returning to school? I picture myself on my deathbed, rattling, gasping for air, looking up at the healthy face before me, hearing it ask if I have any regrets... And me slowly replying: "Yes, I do. I regret that I never found my voice."

So I have a memo due tomorrow; yes, a four-page memo - a proposal for the main project in my Professional and Technical Writing course. The online thing. I'm going to get it done and submit it today. I've figured out already that there is a lot of subjectivity in the way they mark these papers, so I'm just going to do the best I can.

Anyway, a round of scrabble before breakfast. I got here at 6:39 today. I'm such a keener.

J

Ps: constructive comments are welcome, below.

Too much

I have six minutes: Headaches, a cold, violent coughing, having to buy a vehicle, and this morning a broken water main so theres no water at the house. Could there possibly be anything else? I have assignments due next week and I must get to them forthwith. What to do? What to do?

J

Awe shocks

It's a tough lesson. Getting my results back from the first round of tests and quizzes - some are okay, one very definitely is not. I am shocked at less than 50% in that course - one which, quite frankly, I thought I was on top of. Now I'm going to have to go over the results with the T/A to make sure they're correct and figure out what the hell has me so far behind the eight-ball.

It affects other things, too. I had an exam yesterday that depends a great deal on whether I'm 'getting it' with the framework of analysis and the levels of interpretation. I think I am, but... I also have a quiz today that will require a little synaptic dexterity and quite honestly this bad result has thrown my confidence quite severely out of whack.

So we're waiting here at home right now for the people to come and install the new water meter - by municipal decree - and after they're done I'm going in to school to bone-up before class.

During orientation we kids were told over and over again that we should be sure to make time for ourselves - do some of the extra-curricular things that we kids like to do after hours, you know. Well, I'm starting to think it's all bunkum!

Study. Study hard. Study very long, and when you're not actually studying make sure you're thinking about studying because obviously, eating, drinking and - well, you get the picture - is the only way through this degree thing. All those extra-curricular things I took on don't look very attractive just at the moment and I'm going to have to decide if I can keep doing them.

It's 820 Saturday. If the water people aren't here by 830 I'm going to school. My exam is at one.

J

I Just Gotta

Okay, I've got to say someting about this. If you recall, I was feeling a little disjointed the other day about the new library and how cold it was and how there were no books - how it was all digital and cold and modern... you remember. Well, today - because I was here bright and early, because there was no line-up, and because I really am curious about what is apparently the eighth wonder of the world (to hear everyone else speak) - I finally removed the proverbial finger and got up the courage to ask the staff at least a few basic questions about the facility. And as it turns out, that was a good move.

I was told all about it. So much, in fact, that (woosh!) my poor old brain couldn't absorb it all. There's a tour on Monday at 3pm which I will probably attend, but the best thing I picked up today, is that the entire building is available for study, for reverie, for meditation and computational gymnastics of all kinds, and that in general the higher you go the quieter it is.

Well, I immediately started exploring, and this has been born out accurately. The first floor, with the coffee shop, the chit-chat, the walk-through traffic (passage to here, there and everywhere!) and a few disgruntled-looking students, seems to be a handsome though unappealing space for any real kind of concentration. It seems to be more of a social networking zone than anything. The sixth floor, on the other hand is spacious, quiet, and clean, with cubbies for those who like cubbies, desks for those who like desks - all with power outlets, desk lights, and surrounded by - yes, books! Lots and lots of real books!

So the library is not looking quite as cold to me now as it did the other day. Right now, sitting here, working, enjoying the sixth floor view west to the Rocky Mountains, I think I might have found a permanent and possibly perfect place (stop that!) to study.

And now, I think that's just what I'll do.

J

Working it

As I said, mini crunch time. Slowly getting through it, though, with the rest of my life more or less on hold. I don't know - should I take six courses the next semester? The schedule fits and I'd be ahead of the game going into possible co-op opportunities. A lot of work, though. I'm giving it a think.

I find the way they handle exams here a little strange. The rule seems to be "when you're finished you can go". Back at York it was "Bloody well sit there quietly until time is up!" I confess I prefer the old method - because people are very noisy, packing their belongings and rustling their papers. Another distraction.

Two more mid-terms to write, then a paper and a quiz, then a... The first two weeks really are a vacation, aren't they? Ooh, thank goodness I caught my cold in the second week: it would have been a harsh reality to have write exams in the state I was in.

Note to self: get a decent eraser.

J

Exam time

Okay, experiencing a mini crunch here. Quizzes, exams, essays and reports - all due at once. Working my way through it, but it's definitely a workload. It's tough to juggle all the deadlines and get everything done. Well, it would be if I hadn't spent the last 23 years controlling file counts of 150+ and doing it very well. At least I can organize myself.

Just a quick note today. I'm studying for exams tomorrow and Friday so I need to get on with that. I do have a lecture-related bone to pick with some of my fellow students, though: to wit, I do wish you would stop banging your desks and packing up your books when the professor is still talking! It's annoying and disrespectful, and distracting. Besides, I happen to know that most of the time you're not even going to another class, so what's the rush? Afraid we're taking away from your R&R? "Hurry up and finish - I've got to get to Tim Horton's!"

I walked past the library in the dark this morning - the new Taylor Family Digital Library here at U of C. It positively sparkles - it's so modern. I happened to look up to the top floors since it was dark out, and I saw all the beautiful, old books up there, and I thought: "That's the difference in our age. Books are things of beauty - not just what's inside them, but what they are. Our world today is just a shadow of its former self - reduced from warmth, heart and life to cold, hard facts, with cold, hard modern access whether it's needed or not. It's a world of information we just can't handle. Gone is the useful: sacrificed on the altar of convenience and ability. We now do what we do only because we can, not because we need to or should." Everything today is just so convenient, but nobody knows anything about sacrifice."

I sometimes wonder about our species. We're so proud of ourselves. We grow and grow and grow, consuming and massively over-consuming as we go. We measure everything against growth - forgetting that the planet has the ability to sustain only so much of our activity. We will eventually hit the ceiling - it's only a matter of time. All this talk about December 2012 - perhaps the calculations, predictions, soothsaying all stop then because we grow ourselves right out of the equation...

That's it: now back to my studying

J

Pretender

I call this blog "Old Fart" because, well - relative to 34,700 of the other 35,000 students on campus - I am one. I am forty-six glorious years old, with all the necessary rings in my trunk to prove it and, for now at least, I'm still going strong.

Yesterday, though, I acquainted myself with true royalty. 76 year old Avram, who is in the same political science course as I. He tells me that he is the true "old fart" - and I believe him: I defer, prostrate, to his seniority. He says he has taken several courses over the past few years; he takes one course at a time ("God, I don't have your kind of energy!" he says), and he takes them because he enjoys learning. As he put it, "Stop learning, start dying." Nice.

"Do you ever feel out of place amongst all these teenagers?" I asked.

"What are they going to do," he replied. "bully me? I got past all that crap back in the fifth grade."

I suggested coffee some time, and we're going to make that happen.

I do know, of course, and have since the beginning that I'm not the only "mature" student here (I do like that word). I also know that I'm not the oldest - I knew that - intuitively - before I even met Avram. I wonder, though, if I'm not perhaps the only one doing a full course load in order to change careers... Hmmm. Bears investigation. Perhaps I'm a rare gem...

I heard on the news the other night that more and more people are going back to school to upgrade their qualifications - that it's becoming an absolute imperative in the modern world and in the current economic climate. I believe this. I have no source for this, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if a whole bunch of other very intelligent and incredibly good-looking baby boomers weren't figuring out that this is their last chance to do what they actually want to do with their lives, and that education is a large part of that; of capitalizing on their work experience and putting their courage to work for new opportunities.

Either that, or the machine has set another trap and we're all just walking into it. I mean, have you noticed that a B.A. today is what a high school diploma used to be, and that a masters used to be a bachelors? God, if you drop out of high school these days you might as well have flunked kindergarten! Everyone's looking for letters after their name, and he who dies with the most letters wins! I even saw this carried to an illogical extreme once in my old life as an adjuster, when a client called herself (and had it put on her business cards) Jane Doe [name invented], SAHM. I asked of course about the SAHM, and was told it stood for Stay-at-home-mom. "Only slightly pretentious", I remember thinking.

It's also disconcerting to me that some are advocating that university education be guaranteed for everyone and paid for by the public purse. I have to say I am against this. I can't imagine any way to devalue the university experience more quickly or completely than to invite those who don't qualify, and to give it away for free. Part of the learning inherent in a degree comes from books and lectures, part of it comes from sacrifice. Take either part away and all you've got is a more advanced high school and an even greater sense of entitlement. A degree must be earned. It must never be guaranteed or the standard will only keep declining.

J

Feeling strong

Okay, I'm here learning, right? And I'm getting into the, like, academic groove, and I'm like figuring stuff out that I didn't even figure out when I was at school the first time (maybe because it wasn't there, then, to be figured out) and I'm sitting here, growing each day stronger and stronger, remembering the old academic muscle and bringing my hence-learned talents for time management and organization to bear on my erstwhile verbosity, and I'm thinking: "I'm feeling more confident than I did a month ago, and certainly more confident than I did six months ago."

So this begs the question: what is doing this? What on earth is making it so? And how is this newly-amplified confidence playing out in my personal empirical reality?

Question A: what is doing this? Is it my age? Perhaps because the juniors are no longer looking at me like I have two heads I'm feeling more like I fit in - in a Frankenstein-meets-Godzilla kind of way. Is the "maturity" I have had to demonstrate in tutorials (relative again to the juniors) - along with my patent inability to sit in pregnant silence with eyes averted as if to say "don't call on me!" causing me to assume a more responsible first-person? Is my absolutely ability, if not unequivocal determination to lay myself out as a total idiot in any given circumstance finally paying off in links to the collective subconscious of the surrounding junior literati? Are all these things and more finally forcing me to think of myself as an adult? Possibly.

Question 2: What on earth is making it so? Perhaps my Maker has decided at last that I - at 46 freaking years old - ought finally to think of myself as more than a child. Is He (although we all know that God is a woman) nodding with approval at my perspicacity and determination, and finally saying that I deserve a break? Perhaps there's a little payback in my being here - a do-over, a chance if not exactly to be a kid again, at least to feel younger because of them, and to at least feel equal by virtue of the greater store of life experience I already have. Perhaps the cosmos (also a woman) is bored with the direction it was going and now wants to do something else altogether, making the path I was on superfluous and therefore leaving me free to explore new avenues and potentials. I don't know.

Question R: How is this newly-amplified confidence playing out in my personal empirical reality? (Newly-amplified because I've always had it - I just never bothered pushing it before). Perhaps my life's experiences have finally combined, or are finally combining to add up to a present worth waking up for? Perhaps the hope of a second half worth enjoying is over-ruling the distresses that seemed always to come from a first half unequivocally wasted. Perhaps this not mis-placed confidence is what's letting me find the discipline to do what I have to do, and the courage to engage where even just a year ago I would have stayed aloof, or run like hell. Not sure.

What I do know is that I'm a month into this ride and I'm already more free to think positively about life, the universe and everything than I think I have ever been. I'm only just starting, but I'm already figuring things out about myself that I either didn't know before, or that I knew but didn't believe, or that I knew but suppressed because they didn't quite fit with my assigned self-image. In being able to put past pains behind me I've been able to focus on the now and aim for the future. It's almost cliche, but it's true.

I knew it would happen, and that's why I was in such a hurry to get started back in August, quite possibly the longest month of my life. I knew that I wanted to look only forward - whatever purifications were required to make it happen.

There's a lot of satisfaction in being determined.

J

Quick one

Waiting on my first quiz - a multiple choice match-'em-up worth 2% of the grade. I'm not panicked. I don't remember there being very many multiple choice tests in my first go-round.

On the news today: teachers are worrying that the boys and girls are texting so much that they may soon not know how to write. Well, DUH!! I've got news for you - many professionals already do not know how to write, or speak correctly. Unquestionably, accuracy and skill have been sacrificed at the altar of charisma and prior achievement - good communication is secondary. In an era in which it seems that everyone needs letters after their name to get a basic job, it's still all about networking - who, not what you know.

That's just plain wrong.

J

Pressure

Okay, I'm starting to feel it - or at least to recognize it. The pressure of being the "Old Guy". Yesterday in a tutorial class, we were split into two groups to discuss some of the texts we've been reviewing. Five in the group, three actually discussing stuff. Then when it was time to report back to the class it seemed as though I had been elected (acclaimed) the spokesperson. Now I don't mind this - after all there is much muddy water in my river and I've seen a few more seasons than the juniors who surround me - but I also recognize the jumping-off point, so when it was time to discuss the second text I kept my counsel, looked down not up, and after a few moments of silent awkwardness I marshalled my very best theatrical voice and said, with conviction: "Courage everyone!" causing someone else in the group to hoist the banner and speak with pride. I really don't mind standing up - after all, I'll speak to a horse with a hat on - but a line in the sand must be drawn. I nodded and smiled.

Quizzes tomorrow. I suppose now I'll find out whether I'm paying close enough attention. I've also been working on my two written assignments; this morning I laid out the essentials of my Recommendation Report.

Time for class!

J

Listening

Speak and ye shall be heard. Whine and they shall leave the room. No sooner did I say "gentlemen, you might want to reconsider the sprinklers and the fountains" than they were being purged. Smart people. And I didn't even know they were following my blog!

My assignments are under way. Not to let the cat out, but I'm doing Oedipus Rex and A History of Violence anent fate, freedom and slavery. I watched the flick the other night again - with a more critical eye - and saw and heard much that I had missed before, when I was just a movie-watcher. Does that make sense? When Stall said "Yeah, I'm Joey." in the bar back in Philly I heard a dripping contempt and disdain that I had never heard before. I saw plot points, too - beats, if you will - that I had completely missed before. Amazing. Anyway, I'll be working up draft one in the next day or so.

I spent several hours yesterday doing my secondary research for my Technical and Professional Communications course. I must say that this Prof is leading a merry dance. "First, do this. Do it this way. Make sure you include this. The idea is not to miss this, that and the other, but don't bother with those things over there. Unless you want to, and then only if it makes sense to include them. By the way, it's true that this is week four's assignment, but if you haven't read week 13 yet you should do that now because it's relevant to this assignment, too." Like I say, a bit of a dance. I spent several hours yesterday secondarily researching online document collaboration sites - because that's the assignment for week four and week 13. I started taking notes. I need to get that first draft out in the next couple of days, too - the finished product is due in less than two weeks. For what it's worth, I don't remember anyone at the insurance company giving a damn about all the details this assignment wants. Perhaps I've just forgotten all that.

I'm starting to get the sense already of how lazy my brain has become over the past 20 years. That's insurance for you: the great soporific.

J

Http://oldfartschooldays.blogspot.com

Weather, or not

On Friday it was 27C. The Sun was low in the sky as I waited at the bus stop and I had to find some shade. Frankly it was hard to take.

Then yesterday it was 10C, with some rain and a cold north wind; I had to use the +15's at school just to keep warm. Only in Alberta can the change happen that fast. I notice the university still has the sprinklers and fountains going. With frost at night you guys might want to reconsider this... Oh wait, that was my old career. Moving on.

In COMS 201 we have set up a class Twitter space and some pretty good conversations are happening. The posts are supposed to be communication-centric - that is, we're supposed to be discussing class material. I do see a number of other issues comic up, too, of course, but you know there's still a high degree of communication relevance to most of it so I think it's a good exercise.

I'm using my "mumps" photo as an identifier - the one where (I have been told) I look "large". Is this good press? I don't know, but I gotta be me. There's more value inherent in being who I am than in trying to portray myself as some kind of middle-aged Demi-god. I cant lie: my Adonis days - if ever there were any - are long behind me. My best years, however, are still very much in the windshield. At least, I hope so.

I'm at Starbucks this morning. It's Sunday and I've decided I'm not going touch a book today, unless it's for the purpose of dusting underneath it. The house needs a thorough cleaning and that's what's going down today. No income now = no cleaning lady.

The cough persists, as expected, thanks for asking. It will be with me for about a month. Sometimes it's so hard to inhale - even slowly - that my upper lip quivers. Sometimes when I don't even bother inhaling my lip quivers. In those moments I feel so damn sorry for myself that it's just not funny.

I still haven't given away the beverage. Haven't figured out how. Maybe I should have a raffle, or stand on a street corner.

Okay, they're playing one of those newer, thump-thump, mindless, talentless newer song-like things. It's time for me to go.

J