What a beautiful September Friday afternoon. Hot and dry with just a slight breeze. Perfect weather for the farmers in the area, gardeners digging potatoes, and for students walking across campus lawns carrying books and thinking about their last class of the day as the first full week of lectures will have ended--unless they are of the same luck as I who had an 8 am Saturday morning AV (audio /visual) class for one whole semester.
I really miss those wonderful days of university with the beauty of the prairie with coloured leaves falling combined with the fly over and call of Canadian Geese flocking for their long flight south.
In fact, it has made me so homesick for those days that I have spent the afternoon perusing the University course on-line calendar, as well as exploring and comparing rates and meal plans of the on campus residences.
Imagining. Imagining what courses would be the
the most interesting. Which would be the one that I would find the most intriguing--Astronomy? Psychology? or perhaps History? Would I still be able to sustain the required reading and discipline it would take to succeed, or would I tire of the novelty and regret the loss of freedom and money it would cost to reenter that hallowed ground of learning?
I imagine myself wandering the classroom buildings looking like someone's lost helicopter mother, or even an eccentric lecturer out of shape, out of mode, and foresure out of the younger set's realm of 'new' ideas. Would I be someone more to be talked 'through' rather than 'to'? Would the instructors be kinder? speak slower? give directions louder? if they saw me sitting peering at them through bifocals taking notes with actual pen and paper? ( A laptop still conjures a sleezy connotation in my mind).
It came to my attention during my calendar perusal that at the age of 65 one may attend and participate in bona fide-- for credit-- university classes for FREE!--no tuition fees to pay. These are the actual degree needed classes offered to the regular students--not some watered down home and garden variety that are aimed for the hobbyist-,the mildly interested or the simply curious, to be taken over three hour long sessions followed by coffee and snacks.
The leaves will still be crunched on campus sidewalks and the geese will still be flying and honking overhead five years from now, I suppose. Time will tell if I will be part of the crunching and the listening.
I've had a great afternoon dreaming of it all anyways.
I really miss those wonderful days of university with the beauty of the prairie with coloured leaves falling combined with the fly over and call of Canadian Geese flocking for their long flight south.
In fact, it has made me so homesick for those days that I have spent the afternoon perusing the University course on-line calendar, as well as exploring and comparing rates and meal plans of the on campus residences.
Imagining. Imagining what courses would be the
the most interesting. Which would be the one that I would find the most intriguing--Astronomy? Psychology? or perhaps History? Would I still be able to sustain the required reading and discipline it would take to succeed, or would I tire of the novelty and regret the loss of freedom and money it would cost to reenter that hallowed ground of learning?
I imagine myself wandering the classroom buildings looking like someone's lost helicopter mother, or even an eccentric lecturer out of shape, out of mode, and foresure out of the younger set's realm of 'new' ideas. Would I be someone more to be talked 'through' rather than 'to'? Would the instructors be kinder? speak slower? give directions louder? if they saw me sitting peering at them through bifocals taking notes with actual pen and paper? ( A laptop still conjures a sleezy connotation in my mind).
It came to my attention during my calendar perusal that at the age of 65 one may attend and participate in bona fide-- for credit-- university classes for FREE!--no tuition fees to pay. These are the actual degree needed classes offered to the regular students--not some watered down home and garden variety that are aimed for the hobbyist-,the mildly interested or the simply curious, to be taken over three hour long sessions followed by coffee and snacks.
The leaves will still be crunched on campus sidewalks and the geese will still be flying and honking overhead five years from now, I suppose. Time will tell if I will be part of the crunching and the listening.
I've had a great afternoon dreaming of it all anyways.
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