An Education… again

When it comes to the first day of school I always had a problem – I really don’t make good first impressions. At about the fourth go on the impression front people start to take pity on me. Does anybody actually enjoy the first day of anything? Do they relish befriending strangers, making constant small talk and being hit with a barrage of administrative information that won’t make sense for another month?

I have returned to the education pool a good 6 years after graduating from university.

Of course I don’t just give bad first impressions, I also take them in. Orientation Day involved that usual series of two minute judgment calls on whether you can only hope and pray people aren't doing your course. There were chatty people, quiet people, and several bolshie, middle-aged, loud scarf wearing women. There’s the guy using a walking stick/cane which you like to imagine is due to a sporting injury, but in all probability is a prop (Fi informs me canes are quite the men’s Autumnal accessory). Of course, the first person to dodge is the young man who turned out to be a horrendous silence filler via that detestable habit of echoing the last bit of the last premise to be raised before the silence.

Example: a conversation about high school, amongst 4 people who haven't been to high school in a while, runs out of puff. A brief pause followed by Silence Filler slowly uttering "Yeah... high school hey... high school... aaaah high school".

That’s not a contribution Silence Filler, it’s just repetition of the same phrase.

Then there’s all those etiquette issues I’ve completely forgotten about. Putting your hand up before talking, arriving anywhere on time, having to bluff your way through an answer when asked a question about something you were meant to have read but haven’t. And you have to remember to not roll your eyes when people gush about their plans for world domination and the earth-shattering moment when they knew they had found their calling.

It’s my fault I’m so cynical. Earnest people are just so… earnest. It’s like Captain America is going to writing school and the sheer scale of his sincerity is boggling.

Anyway, I’m back in the world of hitting the homework, rocking the readings, and mentally high-fiving my former 16 year old self whenever there’s a class spent doing nothing but watching a movie. No one ever said learning was easy.


Painefull Out