Friday, January 20, 2012

I'm thankful for: being old and cool

(I'm a day behind, how did that happen!!!)

So the other day I went to the first class of the semester for my English year. I won't bore you with the details of what and why and how and why oh why oh why, but I'm taking a full load of English classes (first year university level) (yes, that's on top of the 50% load for my pedagogical studies...). So I went to my first class on Wednesday afternoon, sat towards the front but all the way on the side because I needed to be near a power outlet and powered up my iPad and opened the Writer App, the Safari App so I could have the lecture notes, and then the Australian Open Live Scores App so I could follow the last few matches of the day.

The lecture was so-so but I knew it wouldn't be thrilling, I just need to get through these courses so that's that. But more interesting is what happened after. When I went home, a lot of the people I talked to asked me how it had been to sit in a class with about eighty 19 year olds, mostly girls, and that's when I realized I hadn't even noticed. I remember going to uni for the first time, at 19, and being so aware of my surroundings. How were the others, what kind of notebooks did they have, had they already gotten the books, who looked like the good students and who looked like they were going to be writing their papers the night before they were due etc. A few (ahem...) years later and here I was not even noticing they were all 19 years old (which should have been obvious as I teach 17 year olds...).

More importantly, I didn't give a rat's ass. I had tennis scores to check, readings to do for a meeting in the evening, this class to get done and over with and the last thing I cared about was who was in the class. I didn't care who the good students were, I didn't care who had notebooks, who had laptops, who had perfect skin and who still had acne, I just need to take these courses and pass them and that's all that matters. I did, however, take a quick scan around for electronic devices (of which there were surprisingly few. Lots of smart phones, but very few laptops), and I noticed I was the only one with an iPad, swankily propped up on a wireless keybord, which made me, yes, the coolest person in the class.

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