In the past few years several people suggested I return to school and go for my library techician diploma. I wish I had listened to them a lot earlier. This is so much fun! Not the getting up early part, or the homework part, but the whole which includes early classes, homework, written assignments, and exams. I am loving the whole thing in a way I didn't love it 20 odd years ago.
Not only has my attitude changed, but there have been amny other changes since I last venured into the halls of post secondary education. The first thing I noticed was that more of the students are returning "mature" students. That is, many of them are not right out of high school. In my program, which is really small, there is only one person who is straight out of grade 12. The other 29 or so of us have a few years of work experience, and maybe a degree or two under our belts. I am also not the oldest student in the class, which was a fear.
Another change is student transportation. I used the bus system before, but this time, a pass is included in our tuiton cost, so there is an incentive to use the bus system. Since I live outside Edmonton, I drive into West Edmonton Mall, park, and hop one of three buses and there I am. It saves me $70.00 a month in parking fees, and it makes me feel that I am doing my small bit to help the environment. Plus it gives me a chance to listen to podcasts, and people watch. The bus is usually too crowded to knit, plus the ride is fairly short, and my bag is really heavy, so I am trying to cut out all the non-essential items. (knitting has become non-essential?) I do have time to knit, but it is shared with homework, and "make work" projects for school.
People watching on the bus is different too. In Edmonton, most of the public schools use the transit system instead of the school bus, so there are lots of people of all ages on the bus. Most of them are sporting earbuds and have an MP3 player going. The few who don't have that, have a cell phone to their ears while they are carrying on a conversation. Occasionally there is a person without any of those devices, but I have noticed that fewer people strike up conversations. Weird.
Anyway, I have a class in 5 minutes. I'll get this finished later.