I’ve got my book bag full of notebooks and pens. One of my new Christmas shirts laid out to wear today. And an apple for my professor. I’m off to school in a few hours to start the in-class portion of my efforts to get into grad school. I’m taking the basic editing and reporting class all undergrads who want to get into the J-school have to take, but as a grad student, so I’ll have some extra assignments to justify the grad credit, I suppose.
For the past few days, S. and I have been making jokes about what I should expect when I walk into class the first time. IUPUI does have a strong commuter school element, so there could be plenty of people in their early 30s both starting grad school and even working on the bachelor’s degrees in class. There are also going to be a lot of 18-19 year olds. My running joke has been that I’ll not wear my wedding ring in class and casually mention that I have enough cash to buy a cute classmate a coffee or bottled water. No need for a debit card here, I’ve been in the real world! Fortunately for me, S. thinks jokes like these are funny. I wondered about being the only parent in the class, then I remembered this is 2005 so having just one kid may put me in the minority. There’s bound to be at least one single mom with three kids, two jobs, and one big dream in class, isn’t there? If I become friendly with some smart-ass 19 year old guys who admire my KU gear, will they take to calling me Pops? Will the fact I read the syllabus and know when quizzes are turn me into the class savant? (True story, when I returned to school in ’95 after taking a year off, I took Italian. There were a ton of Fine Arts majors in the class – because of the use of Italian in classic music, I think – and most of them were freshmen just learning about college. There were two guys I loved, because they were stereotypical freshmen full of energy and enthusiasm, but not much work ethic. One day we had a quiz and one kid says, “WHOA! We have a quiz?!?!? How’d you know that???” I told him it was in the syllabus. “Oh, really?” I knew I’d come a long way when I was both going to class and reading the syllabus.)
Anyway, it should be fun and I’m excited to get things started. I’ll be spending some extra time on campus today to pay some bills, pick up books, etc. so I’ll be sharing news of my first day tonight, M. cooperating of course.