Diary of a born-again student

Things are starting to settle down a bit around here. We haven’t had take-outs for supper this week...yet. In fact, yesterday getting groceries and preparing dinner seemed far more attractive than usual. Something familiar that didn't take much thought. I could just cruise through on automatic pilot.

Some days my head has felt ready to burst. A few days ago I sat down with a cup of tea and the Sudoku puzzle - anything that didn't need words. I'm starting to understand why my adolescent son communicates in grunts. With all that is going on with his body, plus school it’s all that he can do to piece together words for food or a lift.

Last night he was doing his Maths homework with a friend, via SKYPE. One of my courses is completely computer-based and has had me waking up nights with my stomach in a knot.  To address my technological inadequacies, I have found someone who is sympathetic to the challenges of the “mature woman” to do some computer coaching with me. 

After three sessions I feel like we have done some feng shui for computers and simplified matters. My daughter was greatly puzzled by the fact that he had whipped out a pen and paper to explain things to me, but that is exactly the level that I needed to start from. 

I have been telling the kids, much to their amusement, that I am going to be sooo clever by June...either that or I’ll be crazy! To put a positive spin on the stomach in a knot part, I am trying to convince myself that, come the end of the semester, I am going to be blessed with a six-pack – which is also one of my son’s goals in life. I am starting to notice a bit of regression on my part...

As time goes by

When I was at university in the 80s, I took notes by hand, and rewrote them at night struggling to decipher my feverish scrawl at the small desk behind the door in the room I shared with my sister. My sister surrounded her bed with a ring of salt to ward off evil spirits which she feared may have come in with the black bag of bones I had brought home for my Anatomy studies.

But I digress. Back in the day, it was acceptable to hand in assignments which were "neatly hand-written" if you didn't have access to a typewriter. Computers were still a dream, like democracy.

My dad owned a small grey Olivetti typewriter. Every evening he would sit at the kitchen table and pound away at the black keys using two fingers to write his reports or exam papers.  The tick-tack-tick-tack rhythm of the machine interspersed with a “cling” and a “swish” as he got to the end of the line, was calming, like a bedtime story, when we were too old for a nightly installment from “365 Bedtime Stories”. Sometimes, when he wasn't busy, I would get to use it for a special assignment, correcting paper at the ready...and carbon paper for copies.

I was thinking about this while trying to decide what courses to do this year, now that I am planning to charge up the brain cells. “You can look everything up before you go to register,” said my daughter. For once she didn't roll her eyes at my technological challenges as she downloaded the faculty handbook and guided me through the 400 pages.

“Are you sure you need to go to orientation all day?” she asked. “You’ll probably find your way around just fine.” Well, having not spent any significant time on the main campus the first time around, I do need a bit of help trying to “navigate the administrative maze of post-graduate studies”. I would hate anyone to have to spread salt to still my spirit if it takes to rambling around the ivy-covered buildings! 

For the Love of Reading

http://interioralchemy.tumblr.com/page/10#

On the cover of a recent Oprah magazine, she is reclining against a wall, mauve and green foliage in the background evoking lazy summer days, on her lap an open book. I tried to imagine the book replaced with a Kindle or some version of an e-book. Not quite the same.

At a recent gathering of fellow writers, we bemoaned the demise of the book. One person in the group mentioned that a friend had recently moved and given away all her books since she was now into electronic reading. We were horrified...giving away all your books?! Sacrilegious! I cannot imagine not having bookshelves laden with books in my home.

But it seems we are the cross-over generation - the ones who can embrace the change brought about by technology but still appreciate the benefits and delights of holding a book, turning the pages. You can’t miss something you never had, or you never knew.

On all our travels around the world we have always come back dragging heavy suitcases filled with books which we simply had to have...On our recent trip to Italy I knew that my daughter had finally relaxed when I saw her curling up on the bed with a book she had been meaning to read for probably a year.

I remember my son for all of his prep school life walking around book tucked under his arm, ready to whip it out if he had a free moment. His school had encouraged this love of reading we had instilled   into both of them from a young age. Sadly, I don’t see him reading much recently. He seems to be spending more and more time on the computer. However, he still has a bookshelf of favourite books which he won’t pass on and I think that it won't be long before he is inspired to pick up a book again.

On the other hand, I don’t mind what they read as long as they read...