First semester ends

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Unbelievably I finished the first semester.

Final exams were as mickey mouse as the mid-terms. The major workload on which the marks will depend will be the big assignments, like the PowerPoint presentations, the 2-man groupwork, the 4-man groupwork. Our job is to present visible results that look like we can put what we have been taught into action and concrete results, and that we can work with others. Somehow I have managed to work with others, although this is still the greatest challenge I will have to overcome next semester and next year.

I think I passed everything although we won't get our marks until Jan 6. Now we have 3 blessed weeks of rest with classes starting again on Jan. 11.

I discovered that working with my fellow students is not so much just the difference in years (I am older than the President of the college) it's a difference in life experience, hormonal direction and life purpose.

The young, normal-aged students are not just here to learn a profession. Unbeknownst to them they are also seeking out life partners, both lovers and friends, who will be the basis for their future social lives. They are required to choose people to work with in groups, but their first priority is not accomplishing the assignment, it is being in fun company who is totally on their wavelength. Somehow with fun company they will accomplish the assignments.

There is nowhere on earth that I have a hope of being chosen as fun company. I think my last chance with them was around the age of 5. That's the time when kids with that many years between us think people my age are fun company. In spite of the fact that I have shown I am "cool", and pretty much on board with their culture and interests, I am exactly the kind of person they now want to avoid.

They don't want an adult hanging around them, they want to be free, naughty and bad. They want to break rules. They want to be responsible on their terms and to their rhythm. They want to be horny to their heart's content. No matter how "cool" I am, no matter that baby boomers invented adolescent rebellion, there is no way they can be that with anyone who reminds them of their teachers, parents or grandparents. Nor do I want to deal with their issues with these people, I have my own issues with these people too.

I had hoped to join one of the 35 social clubs the Students' Union has going but what with the part-time and our extreme 6 course semesters there just isn't time.

Next term I realize that we will have 3 classes starting at 8:00 AM. Oh, the horror.

Prof Gerard's idea for solving the groupwork problem was picking the brightest and best to partner with. Yeah, but everyone now, for the reasons above, has their permanent groups. Their pals, their lovers, or their wanna-be lovers. I can't depend just on Joanne for the next year and a half. I have no idea if Carol will be there. So more challenges ahead.

Oh yeah, did I mention that the college association and faculty union's contract talks have broken down. The faculty union has a strike vote scheduled for Jan. 13.

December - Full throttle

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Joanne and I have been going like gangbusters on the remaining assignments and left the other two eating our dust. Dayna is eager to learn how to work and participate and is glad to be assigned tasks. Joanne and I designed the look and purpose of the media kit, magazine and newspaper and passed some writing and layout work to Dayna.

However, again we have hit the great divide between the Mature and the Immature. Ross has disappeared. Far fewer students are in class now. Prof Marilyn tells me this is the time they start dropping off and neither the college or the teachers may know about it. The teachers just have to keep a regular roll call going to know who is and is not coming into class. Ross is one of these people who may or may not have dropped out of class, or is just skipping a lot of classes.

Like many others who have learned to goof off in high school and be passed anyway, he is not bothering to come into class, return emails, and return phone calls. He certainly is not with Joanne, Dayna and me in the library searching through reference books and image libraries. He is not picking colors or fonts or calculating the number of article inches that can fit on a page. He has not submitted one article or one photo and certainly not one idea.

Joanne has finally run into him somewhere and given him one page of the newspaper to work on, and to write restaurant reviews for the section of our magazine we designed for restaurant reviews. He emails the reviews in and that is one thing he does.

It is time to present the media kit. We have had to design a presentation folder, brochure, business card, letterhead and sales letter for this magazine and newspaper we are publishing. This is for the Adobe Desktop Publishing class and goes toward 30% of our final mark. The other two are for the Design for Newsprint class, where we have also been taught magazine layout. Joanne and I have done maybe 80% of the work, Dayna maybe 19%, and Ross maybe 1% except only .5% has been turned in.

Prof Ellen makes it clear she wants to know who did how much work. Well, Ross did nothing on the media kit - nada, zip - and I say so.

Later on Ross vexes his indignation. He was a part of our group, how come we didn't include him in the group!??! Ellen told him he better have something he designed handed in the next week, or he will lose the marks. Ross just expected us to cover for him. Just like a 10-year-old he was part of our "gang" and the gang was supposed to include him in the rewards even if he didn't come out to play. He thought we would cover for him = and I think the other 2 sould have - but I come from different priorities that does not have peer loyalty as its first rule - so I guess he was wrong.

Now the next step is due. The newspaper needs to be presented to Prof Marshall in the Design for Newsprint class. Except that he hasn't sent in the page he was supposed to design and fill with articles and photos. Again, we email and phone him to send us his page. Marshall wants to see the whole thing. No response, he's mad at us and doesn't want to play with us anymore.

Joanne gives him an ultimatum. He still talks to her, he no longer talks to me - I am too much like a teacher, expecting him to be responsible. Joanne tells him if he does not act like a functioning member of the group, he is out. We will not contact him any longer, we will have to do his page for him, and he will lose another large set of marks. Joanne tells us how tired she is of constantly checking for emails that he never sends. The rest of us are working but part of our energy is drained because we have to keep him in mind and keep wondering where he is all the time.

Ross answers his first email, ever. Yes, he's in. He has worked on his page of the newspaper and sends the attachment. The paper has to be presented in one day and Ross shows up at his first meeting with us, the next morning, to review the whole look. Joanne has taken on the editing duties, and she works until past midnight coordinating our collective effort so that the newspaper looks cohesive.

The next day, the 4 of us present our newspaper and Marshall likes what he sees.

December - Possibility of carpool

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My travel time and cost problems were weighing on me therefore, I had put up posters hoping either students, staff or faculty might want to share a car seat with me. I had also placed ads in online carpool sites and on Craigslist.

I discovered earlier that only 2% of the student body came from my city. This cut down the odds of me finding a carpool considerably.

I did get one call from a member of the staff who lived not that far from me, but far enough for me to have to take public transit to her place, making whatever cost savings I was planning negligible. Anyway, she only left one message and did not return my phone calls.

Another student texted me asking how much I was charging for carpooling. I texted her back saying I was not the one with the car, I was looking for a person with a car. She texted me saying I should make that clear in my poster because it was very misleading. I texted her back saying that my poster clearly says in big bold letters, "I NEED A RIDE". She texted me back to relax and not be so snippy.

Then I got a third call from someone who sounded ideal. A furniture design student who lived only 2 blocks away from me, had practically the same hours as I did. When we met she turned out to be 27-years-old and good company for the half hour drive. She did want almost as much money as I was paying for the train but she explained that it cost her way more than the cost of the train for gas and parking, so I agreed.

And then a strange series of inexplicalbe, perhaps even unfortunate, events occurred. She told me she could not pick me up the next day because she had to take her mother to the doctor. Okay. I understand. But then she did not show up again the next day. I left messages on her phone, but no reply. I sent her an email, but nothing. This went on for 4 days. I'm thinking, has she been in an accident?

I decided to walk down to the furniture design section and try to see if any of her teachers or classmates knew where she was. Well, she was there, in class. She was surprised to see me, she said lost her cell phone and only got another one yesterday. She said she had not seen my email. I was relieved she was okay and we agreed to continue our journeying the next day.

But then I thought about it. Could she not find another phone to call me from, seeing that I was expecting her for 4 days? If she got her cell phone yesterday why did I have to go to the furniture section to find her? Oh well, not to be paranoid. She was coming by tomorrow again.

Tomorrow she picks me up and says that she won't be able to drive me home because of something or other for several days. The mornings are alright but evenings will now be unpredictable. This means the financial edge I have with this carpool will disappear because I will have to pay for single ride tickets on the train (much more expensive than the monthly pass). But this is going to be a short month so maybe it will be okay.

The next day I wait for her to pick me up at 8:00 as she is supposed to. 8:20 she is not there. I call her. No answer, I leave a message. I can't wait any longer, I have to get to the train by 8:50 to get to the College on time, and I should have left my home 10 minutes before to get that. I throw on my coat, heave on my backpack and dash out of the house. I have no hope of making the train, so I hail a cab to take me to the train station.

An hour or two later I check my cell phone for messages after class, and there is a message from her. Oops, she forgot to tell me she couldn't pick me up today.

Obviously this is not going to work out. Besides the normal chaos of trying to work out departure and return times, paying almost the same as the train fare, I am really questioning the dependability and sincerity of this person. I made it quite clear that if either she or I decided this was not going to work for us, for whatever reason, we would just say it wasn't going to work. No explanation was necessary. Just tell me if you don't want to do this anymore. She totally agreed.

But I don't know. Some people have a really hard time being direct and the passive/aggressive approach is easier. At any rate, my enthusiasm for this had died out. It appears that unless several people are involved in this carpool idea there is not much cost saving and regularity and dependability are essential.

So scratch the carpool idea.

November - the 4-legged monster

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The slide presentation on the History of Travel Writing is my first exposure to a learning phenomenon I have not yet personally experienced. Four people work together to produce one assignment. It really is like a 4-legged monster with uneven legs and no sense of direction, but we are all a part of it and we all have to make those 4 legs arrive together on a specific date. If a leg drops off or wanders in a different direction, the other legs have to take up the slack.

I am so grateful that Joanne understands this factoid perfectly. The others say, "oh, it's not fair we shouldn't make decisions until everyone is here." Or, "everybody should have the same vote" meaning we should vote on decisions over and over again until everyone is there and understands and has had a chance to research what is being voted on. A nice idea, but if we only have two weeks to do this and members of the group don't attend 90% of the meetings, it doesn't work very well.

Prof Marilyn has thundered, "If anyone is not pulling their weight on this project I want to know. I will not have my D students pulling my A students down!"

So, on it went. Only Joanne and I were showed up at each meeting. Dayna and Ashley were either working part-time, partying, sleeping, weren't coming into class that day or somehow never showed up at a meeting even if they had been reminded to an hour earlier.

I had no idea if everyone would be there at the presentation. I had covered travel books, Joanne covered newspaper travel sections, Ashley covered National Geographic Magazine and Dayna the travel magazines post 1900 to the present time. Until Dayna and Ashley started showing up for meetings Joanne and I were prepared to go up and only show our parts of the presentation.

Marilyn had wanted us to spread reading and showing the slides equally timed between all 4 people, but we just never got together enough times to work that out seamlessly. So we agreed to just read our own. Joanne's and my section took 15 minutes of our 20 minute allotment, the other 2 took the other 5 minutes.

November - the pressure builds

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Joanne is my salvation. Yes, she is young, but she has already been through 4 years of university and 2 years of living and working on her own. She knows exactly what I am going through. She invites me into her group because she understands another person who wants to work, who wants to complete the assignments more than socialize, show off to their peers, and feel smart goofing off.

Joanne has studied environmentalism and is now studying journalism as a way of channeling her environmental interests. Two other 18-year-olds are in her group, Dayna and Jason. She tells me they have not contributed much in the way of ideas or enterprise so far, but if given tasks they will do them. Well, that's better than nothing.

Joanne is a world traveler and excellent photographer. In the next two hours we work out the foundation for a travel magazine, and a newspaper based on articles we have already written as assignments, which will save us having to write new articles. Thank you, merciful lord.

Joanne also joins my one-person group in the History of Journalism assignment on the history of travel writing. Prof Marilyn, in the History of Journalism class wrote out choices for our next PowerPoint assignments for class, except this time in 4 person groups, on the blackboard with instructions for us to come and sign out names under our topic of preference. I wrote my name under History of Travel Writing and no one else did. Marilyn then wrote Dayna's name under mine because she wasn't in class that day and lost her choice. Joanne wasn't in class either so but volunteered for the History of Travel writing too before Marilyn noticed.

So now, Joanne, Dayna and I were working on the magazine, the newspaper, the media kit for both and on the travel writing presentation. Later we would be joined in travel writing by my previously errant partner Ashley, who decided to come into a class after all and was placed with us.

Carol, who did attend the History of Journalism classes had signed up for History of War Journalism.

All of us bond by bitching about Prof Marilyn's marking habits which too often seem to be based on the mood she's in, or the expectation of us being able to second-guess how she wants her test questions answered even though they may be answered correctly but in other words. I put up with this in high school because arbitrary power plays by teachers were expected, I am no mood to put up with it now.

November - Group work

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This College relies a lot on group work. It's one way to process as many students as possible, and therefore collect more money, while dealing with the problem of how to teach them effectively. The College's theory is that if you make them do lessons and assignments in groups you only have to mark one assignment for every 4 people. The profs have left that fact slip out more than once.

As usual I was having a hard time in the most precise, least philosophical class: Design for Newsprint. And I once imagined being a layout artist. No way. Because I am late with an assignment I have not been able to finish in class, I am not paying attention when Prof Marshall tells the class to form groups of 4 for a major assignment leading to major marks. The groups form themselves and I am left with 2 other orphans. Not ones I would have chosen if I had first choice.

This is my group:

Ross is an enigma. He is 18 years old and says he has never read a newspaper before coming into this course. He wants to be a sports writer and he only reads stats. He doesn't even read other sports writers and obviously not, Mitch Albom. When I ask him what makes him want to write for newspapers, since he is revolted by the thought of reading them, he says, "I like sports."

Great. He likes sports but does not have what it takes to be an athlete, so what else can he do? Hey, he can be a sports writer. How else to get to see free games. He is one of the most passive, clued-out looking people in the class.

"Not the sharpest tool in the shed," Carol said about him once. Carol has dropped the graphics design classes in an effort to get control over her responsibilities, so I can't get into a group with her.

Ashley is also 18 years old. Sweet, angelic looking, wide-eyed waif. Our assignment is to put 4 pages of a newspaper together: the front page, a news page, and 2 other sections. We must write all the articles and take all the photos or create all art. It must have headlines, a targeted readership and be pleasing to read. It took me 2 hours to finish my unfinished assignment, time which Ross and Ashley had to confer about the subject matter of the newspaper. In that time they did not come up with one idea. I feel that familiar sense of panic again.

The assignment has to be in within 5 weeks (along with similar major assignments coming down, like a magazine and a media kit for both magazine and newspaper). In that time, Ashley is sick for 2 of the 5 weeks and does not return phone calls or emails.

Ross keeps saying, "yeah, yeah, I know" whenever I say we have to get started on this. He tells me Ashley doesn't like some of the classes and isn't coming to them anymore. I discover now is the time when students start dropping out, which is often displayed by just not showing up at class.

We did finally decide to do a newspaper on local music based around a local band who are friends of Ashley's, because neither of them had the slightest idea what I was talking about when I mentioned some of my interests, like the work of human rights' NGO's against the federal government's to cut off their necessary funding.

This band performs only at certain times. Our main article will be about their performance which only Ashley knows when will be happening. But she isn't communicating and not showing up for class way after she is not sick anymore, and Ross looks like a thought will come into his head only if he is connected to an electrical charge. I am in serious panic now because I cannot do this alone. I cannot do all the work and crack the whip over their heads too.

Ross tells me he has no idea when Ashley will come back to class or when she will talk to her band friends. Then he tells me he has been talking to her on the phone almost every evening. And he never thought to ask her these questions!!!

The teachers have told us that if someone in our group is not pulling their share of the load to let them know immediately. I ventilate my panic all over Prof Marshall and he tells me he will find me another group.

All the groups are full so I am placed in the a group of guys I mentioned before. The most guy group in the class. The ones who snark and whistle and snort and make paper airplanes through lectures. The ones interested only in zombies, gaming, hard metal and splatter films. I could deal with sticking only to these subjects. As a sociological writer basically, I can write about the sociology of anything. However, I discover that not only have they also not decided on a subject for the newspaper, they cannot decide.

They are too busy cracking jokes and outwitting each others ideas. They are too busy showing each other what smart guys they are to actually arrive at a final decision. They are too busy competing and showing off and not letting anyone else make a decision either - because every decision is an invitation to another competition and to another round of witty, put-down jokes.

The last thing these guys want is to have their grandma sitting in their tight little group. Two more hours of class are spent in having not one decision made, not even my arbitrary decisions allowed.

The next day, despondent, I pour my heart out to a friendly 25-year-old named Joanne. Luckily, she is my salvation.

November begins

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I am back after spending the last week of "rest" running through several university libraries and long distance calls to Winnipeg and special stores that might have books on the North End of Winnipeg, which is my "neighborhood" even though I haven't seen it in 20, or so, years.


The result is 8 pages of essay and Prof John likes it. John likes all my work. His job is to teach the students to think. He realizes I can think and he is grateful for that. He gives me an A+.

John and I have come to having chats after the History and Politics class. He is also a vagabond, a hobo through life. A square peg surrounded by round holes. He is a creative, philosophical person who has had a difficult time trying to turn those skills into a money-making enterprise. He has been an actor, a poet, an author, an editor, a publisher, film-making crew, construction worker and a bookstore owner. He has taught at the college for 32 years, most of it part-time. Sounds like my life, except I haven't reached the teacher stage yet. Anyway, he is not surprised by my career trajectory.

But he has lost his patience with the young and that slips out too often. He praises their quickness of mind but he decries their interests in loud music and video games. He tries to sound hip but only makes it obvious he is not hip because he is trying so hard. He comes across like an old fuddy-duddy who just wants to sleep in front of the TV and young people are making too much racket.

He meanders through his lessons, which sounds a lot like, "when I was your age...", an instant turn-off, even for me. He tells jokes nobody gets and anecdotes about his life that interest no one. He'll make reference to some movie, "there's that movie that's playing downtown - you know - the one all the kids are seeing. What's its name? You know the one." The young students indicate confusion, and that makes him even more dismissive of them.

I enjoy talking with him though. I too sense the distance between me and the young students, but I hope I am not like him.

October - Mid-term

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The exams were a piffle. I couldn't believe it. I hesitate to say this, but they were mickey mouse.

Forty years ago, in high school, I remember practically having to memorize the textbooks, but on our mid-term exams we were asked true and false questions, we did a test that was similar to one I had to do when registering with a temp agency to find me administrative work, and for the desktop publishing, dear, sweet Prof Ellen hovered around us ready to answer any questions we didn't know how to answer.

Did education change that much in 40 years? People talked among themselves during the exams, possible asking and giving answers to one another. The professors did not seem to mind. They did forbid looking up answers in notes on the internet, which miffed some students.

Later I talked to Prof Judy about it.

"Oh yes," she said. "It's changed since our day. Kids today are not used to getting strong challenges in school. Some have never written exams. Failure wasn't allowed."

Maybe I was ready for tougher questions, but they sure aren't.

This did not help with my confusion. The gulf is worse than I thought. But it was now a whole week of mid-term break and I planned to catch up on the sleep I had missed in the last 6 weeks, except that I still had an essay to write for Mike's class on History and Politics.

We had to write the history of the neighborhoods in which we grew up, and the part of our forebears played in it. This would have been fine. I love history, except like the progress of my professional life, that was a complete checkerboard in my life as well.

My parents were born in Europe, I moved here when I was 4. I no longer lived where I lived out my childhood and my parents and forebears' contributed virtually nothing to the history or any neighborhood I lived in my life. We had all been gypsies in every metaphofical interpretation of the word. The neighborhood in which I grew up was also in Winnipeg, still another city, and very few records of that neighborhood were kept outside of Winnipeg.

I was to spend my mid-term break researching, via long distance, the history of a place whose history was recorded very scantily and mostly in the memories of people, who were either dead or whom I no longer knew.

October - Partnering

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My next PowerPoint presentation was for Prof Gerard's class. This had to be with a partner of one's choosing. Two students must select a recent newsmaker, from recent news, to interview further about whatever it is about him or her that is making news. I panicked. My classmates had already formed groups, friends, partnerships and I did not belong to any of those categories. I could think only of Carol, who had not been in class for a week due to court appearances for her divorce.

I called Carol and she assured me she would be available to help me do the thing. Her time and availability was very unstable what with her daughter, ex-husband, finances and travel problems, but she had the fire in her belly and the maturity I had not spotted in too many of my other possible partner choices. We set to it, phoned a bunch of people we found in the newspaper. The first one to call back was one of Carol's ideas. Carol talked to him from her home which is two cities away from mine.

Carol got the interview, so the only thing for me to do was to design the presentation. I consider myself fairly talented in the design department and had no problem putting her interview into a visual context. We worked very hard on this assignment and I sent the finished presentation to her about 10 PM Thursday night. Friday morning we had to present it.

Friday morning I was up there while Carol screened the PowerPoint and I was surprised to discover that she had changed my design totally - but totally! Only one slide was recognizable as mine, so I panicked as had become a habit with me by this time. I insisted on talking to Gerard about it.

Carol got all upset and thought I was going to dump on her but that was not what I was planning to do. We had talk and a beer over it and I explained what upset ne was that I had no idea how to keep control of my work in a group work situation. I I wanted to ask Gerard how we were to make sure that our work would stand out in a group's.

The reason I was worried about this was, of course, again, I knew sometime in the future I would have to work with "them", the young ones and being on totally different planets vis-a-vis thinking, planning, studying, experiencing and producing I wanted to know how to keep some kind of control over my own work integrity.

I dreaded having to work with "them". I had already worked on magazines and newspapers and had gone through quite a few trials and tribulations to be a productive individual under trying circumstances. They had not. I didn't want to be like them, acting clued out and jumping into the first joke to avoid dealing with the assignment.

I was afraid I would have to play the role of mommy or teacher, dragging them along after me. In some ways this was not a bad option, but I had to be realistic also, If I was to be an effective mommy or teacher I had to answer the question, "Well, what the hell are you doing here then, with us?" Yeah.

Gerard helped Carol and I resolve our conflict. I had to admit her design was better, but he said next time make it clear ahead of time what your terms within a partnership are. If I want design approval, state that ahead of time. If I want responsibility for one part of the project only than I should make that obvious, and make it clear I would not allow it to be changed behind my back. I felt better after that, but not much.

Mid-term exams were coming up, I was consumed with studying as I had not done in 40 years, and beginning to feel the weight of assignments still to be completed. I was working through all the free periods, any time I had at home, and on weekends. Often I was writing articles late at night that were due the next morning.

I could do this because I had written articles before and could do them quickly according to format, but I could not figure out how anyone who did not have my professional experience and had not read as much as I did could keep up the pace.

October - Studies and Partnership

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I mentioned that meeting and making friendship and relationships was a very difficult thing here didn't I? No time for social clubs, living in a different city, and totally out of sync with 99% of the student body. As I said, at least I had a purpose and I was busy.

There is not a lot of time for thinking in the journalism program. We are too busy doing things. If I thought college would be a place for contemplative walks that inspire higher thoughts this wasn't that kind of college.

Basically we were told to think of ourselves as being hired to apprentice journalism. Every assignment was the job we were supposed to perform in order to keep the job.

At the beginning it was quite simple. In the History of Journalism class we were to make a 5 minute PowerPoint presentation on a famous journalist whose name we would draw out of a plastic bag. The names began with Daniel Defoe in the 17th century, who is considered to be the first journalist. The assignment was to present all the important points and contributions in this person's life. The class had to be aware of who this person and why he was important in the history of journalism.

I pulled the name of Daniel Pearl. This was okay with me because I was aware of his story and quite moved by it. His life and tragic death were the subject of a book, A Mighty Heart, written by his wife, Mariane Pearl, later made into a movie starring Angelina Jolie.

Danny Pearl was an investigative journalist, bureau chief for Asia for The Wall Street Journal who was investigating al-Qaeda connections in January 2002 in Pakistan. For this he was kidnapped by a jihadist group who executed him by beheading him, video-taping his killing and sending the video to the police. His body was cut into 10 pieces and buried in a shallow grave beside a highway outside Karachi, where it was found 3 months later. It was a warning for foreign journalists to stay out of Pakistan.

In researching the story I watched the movie and read the book. I was so emotionally moved by Danny's story and Mariane's love and the awful tragedy of the whole thing. The story consumed my senses all the while I was working on it. I had to design the perfect background for the PowerPoint, I needed the photos and images to be just so and I timed the points in the story to perfection over and over again. I began to wish I had chosen an easier subject, maybe Horace Greeley or Jonathan Swift, people I could never see as contemporaries and potential friends as I could the Pearls.

Prof Marilyn however, docked me marks because I concentrated not on Daniel Pearl's journalistic accomplishments but on the circumstances of his death. Well, he didn't become famous for his journalism. His journalism, although thoroughly professional, was not of world-renown quality all by itself. Had he not been murdered the way he had, he would have been known perhaps to their peers and readers, but not famous. Daniel Pearl's claim to fame is not his writing, but as a martyr to journalism.

But no, that's not what Marilyn wanted. Anyway, I was glad to lose the marks because I could not have done the story the way she wanted, exploring article after article on Wall Street Journal topics while ignoring the elephant in the room which was his death.

Marilyn's next assignment was for us to read at least 3 daily newspapers and select articles that represented certain nine different themes she was covering in her course. Some were common and would be easy to find, but many were obscure like "the purpose of newspapers".

Marilyn is a lover of the physical newspaper and dreads the day it will disappear. I suspect she created this assignment to force us to buy 3 newspapers a day and maybe help save the industry. Ha! In her dreams. I now became a prowler of garbage cans and recycle bins and a cafe thief.

October - One of my worries is settled

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I managed to raise all the money I hoped to raise for this academic year, but I had factored in a part-time job and for all of September I did not find one.

I had hoped to be hired by the office or the library at the college but applied too late. Plan B was to get a job at nearby malls or industrial parks, or frankly anywhere, doing anything I can get. I did shudder at those possibilities since part-time student jobs could be pretty gruesome, jobs were scarce and likely I would have to take anything that I was offered.

Well, lucky for me, I saw an ad on a bulletin board at the school for a Studio Monitor. The Theatre and Drama Studies program needed someone to go into the studios their students used for classes and/or rehearsals and check to see that all the equipment and props were in their right places. Each studio has a specific list of equipment that frequently gets borrowed by almost anybody for almost anything and it was up to me to hunt it down if it was missing and to make sure, that by the end of the day everything in the studio looked like it did at the beginning of the day. By the time I applied one sofa and two mattresses had already been missing for awhile.

I wasn't the best choice for the job, but I was the only one who applied. As usual, Patrick, my boss, was surprised when he first saw me. I am almost used to seeing the surprised look on people's faces when I explain that no, I am not staff, no I am not faculty, no I am not a parent, I am a full-time student. However, he was easily prepared to be convinced that at the age of 63 I was willing to move furniture around and mop up 6 studios because it was already October and no one had yet applied for the job. I don't know why not. It was not that hard, a fairly relaxed work ethic when no furniture had been "borrowed" and paid $10 an hour which was as much as anyone could expect to be paid for a student job.

Patrick is a former professional actor who is now Professor of Theatre and Drama Studies on a joint program with this College and a university. He selects all the plays the students will work on and they all need to have the exact number of male and female performers as his classes, which is quite the challenge finding such plays. He hoped to find a resident student because the studios tend to be used until about 10 PM and it works best if the Studio Monitor can come after that time and straighten things up.

However, since I go home to a city two hours commuter travel away, and I was the only one who applied, and he was desperate, we agreed I would be on the job from 5:30 to 7:30. That was when I had to leave to make sure I caught the 8:30 train and had a chance to make it home for 10:00 PM providing I could ride my bike from the train station and it wasn't raining.

There have been occasions when I did not leave on time to catch the train. In that case home would happen an hour later.

The job was the best I could expect under my circumstances. I am almost never supervised and as long as things are okay, no one needs to supervise my work. Most of the time items are not moved around, or if they are they are moved back. Aside from having to pick up an amazing amount of half full water bottles, sweep up Doritos and Goldfish crackers and worm gummies off the floors and re-stack the stacking chairs. The rest of the time I work on my assignments from my laptop and keep one ear open for anything amiss in the studios. Patrick is happy that someone is there and that alone is a deterrent from stuff disappearing.

I get to listen to the students rehearsing their songs from musicals like Oklahoma and do their tap routines. The prop and set design department is part of my jurisdiction. Another time I had to walk through the hallways with my brooms. Students were rehearsing scenes in the hallways and I could only get past by walking through their scenes. They'd be yelling or swearing or threatening to kill each other, or trying to kill each other and I just walk through with, "excuse me, excuse me".

The missing sofa and mattresses were found under the studio theatre stage and returned to their own rooms.

Students and Teachers

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As I have made obvious in an earlier post, the students are young. I had hoped however, that since they chose the profession of journalism to study they would be, at least, curious and as well-informed as their years would allow. They are informed about music, movies, TV, games, the internet, ipods, fashion and everything else that caters to their age. They are very little informed about anything else. My hope of finding at least an intellectual bond with them has been....disillusioned.

Most hate reading newspapers and avoided it whenever possible. This baffles both me and the profs who never know why people like these enroll in journalism classes. Unlike the other programs in the School of Arts the journalism enrollees are not pre-screened. They know little about geography, science, politics, current events, past events or anything other or wider than their own young world. Worse, they don't seem curious. Curiosity is the most important attribute of a journalist.

When I was young I was the kind of kid who watched all the Disney documentaries (loved Adventure World) and could get lost in an encyclopedia for hours. Maybe 5 of my classmates could fall into this category. The others seem....comatose. Don't show initiative, curiosity, or interest. Sort of like grade school students who have never had to choose to go to school, or been pressured to really learn anything. Twelve years of school just happened to them - churned into the machine in Grade 1 and spat out at Grade 12 - and they've simply gone along with the process.

They don't seem to be aware they are no longer in the process, and unless they become actively engaged in their learning they will have wasted lots of money and be unemployable when they come out. But then it's their parents whose money will be wasted.  Many get a kick out of surfing Facebook while pretending to take notes and making paper airplanes during journalistic technique video screenings and skipping classes. A group of guys have already congregated at the back of the room. They surf game websites and blow raspberries during class. They look blank or make crazy jokes whenever a question that requires thinking is asked.

To give them some credit the College didn't ask much of them other than passing marks. They did not have to prove any journalistic attributes like being able to write, ask questions, or know their grammar. They could be better suited as supermarket cashiers for all anyone at the College knows. The journalism program profs have protested often about this selection of students, but administration has done nothing about it.

The Professors:

On the positive view of things all the professors have had to be working in the world of jourmalism or publishing before they could be hired. This is a requirement for all the professional programs at this College.

Judy W. is a former actress and newspaper hard news writer. She teaches Writing for Newspapers 1 and loves the hard news format.

Marilyn K. teaches History of Journalism and has written for the New York Times among others. She is a teacher of the old school - the "rap on the knuckles never hurt anyone" school. She is kind of stern, no nonsense. Never say "oh it doesn't really matter, does it?" to her. It all matters. She is currently writing her third book on grammar, a sequel to the other two.

Ellen M. is a whiz on the Adobe desktop publishing suite and teaching us Adobe Desktop Publishing. She is very motherly and extremely forgiving. Threaten to cry and she will always run to your aid.

Marshall M. is very precise which explains why he teaches Designing for Newsprint. He loves fitting text and graphics into a precise space with all the calculations that come with it. I am not a precise person and am terrible at maths.

John G. teaches History and Politics. He is 67 years old and been around the block in several careers, especially publishing. Unfortunately he is like an old fuddy-duddy in every sense of the word. He talks and thinks like an old man. He tries to understand young people but can't help be condescending to them. His jokes are full of sarcasm and put-downs of the interests of youth. It does not make him or his class popular, especially as he teaches all the things good journalists need to know - like history and politics - but that young people have been avoiding knowing all their life.

Gerard S. teaches Research Techniques and is also currently employed at a national newspaper. He has won journalistic awards and investigated the government, the police and federal agencies. He is very vibrant, knowledgeable, engaging and enthusiastic. He has a very male approach to teaching. If you ask him a question he answers, "I don't know, you tell me." He teaches you to think on the run. That means he is not going to make it easy for you to know something you can discover for yourself. He throws you in the water to teach you to swim. No pampering, no molly-coddling. Learn or get lost.

September - classes

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I am starting to panic. I feel like a ghost. I notice the Students' Union is avoiding people like me. Everything on their briefs and bulletins and schemes for making students feel at home and more involved amounts to pub parties, beer pong tournaments and wet t-shirts contests. Why do I feel I won't fit in?

At least I have registered with the Disabilities office and got letters to pass on to my teachers telling them they should excuse my ditziness, confusion, lack of coordination, losses, forgetting of time and place and teachers now don't mind me coming in an hour late, or leaving my assignments in my locker, or misplacing textbooks that this radical change in my lifestyle has only accelerated. I lost 2 more cell phone. After not having lost any for the 4 years I have had a cell phone, in one month I lose 2 and find that my reserve phone isn't working.

The profs are avoiding me. Their lesson plans and remarks are slanted to the experiences of high school students.

Typical situations:

A prof will say something like, "What did you learn in civics class?" How do I answer that? I haven't been to civics class in 40 years.

They'll say, "Close your computers right now! You are all on Facebook and I know it!"

But I'm not on Facebook, and the computer helps me record the lesson. The profs all take on the posture I remember so well in high school, that of a drill sargeant facing facing recruits who will have to be managed. We get a daily sermon about the evils of surfing Facebook when we are supposed to be focused on our future careers - and - do we know how much of our parents' money we are wasting by surfing Facebook instead of paying attention to the lesson? Oh my.

There are answers to lessons that I know simply because I have lived in the world, but I feel very strange answering them because I will be able to answer every such question asked.

After discovering that I do know the names of authors, historic events, an awful lot of books and current affairs they look over me because they expect me to know such things. Friends have advised me to hold myself back and let the young ones shine. But isn't that cheating myself? I have never shined in a college situation, what if I want to shine too? Once again I am expected to accommodate the needs of others over my own. When I lift my hand the profs don't feel challenged. They feel more challenged engaging with inert youth.

"does anyone about Watergate?"

No answer.

I wait a minute or two until I realize no one is going to lift up their hands. I have to lift up my hand. I can't let the prof think I don't know that. The prof sees my hand but ignores it hoping someone who is not supposed to know it will know it, not the person who should know it. Still no hand up from the youth wing. Then she allows ne to answer the question.

"Watergate is an apartment building in Washington, but it is also the term also refers to an event in 1972 that was uncovered by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein of the Washington Post, which lead to the prosecution of several of President Nixon's aides for burglary and funding irregularities, and eventually led to the resignation of Nixon himself for being complicit in the situation."

"That's right," says the prof somewhat flatly. She wanted one of "them" to know it, she wanted that thrill, that surprise. They were the ones who would have got her smile of approval. I have way passed the point of getting smiles of approval from teachers.

I discuss this with the Counseling Office and get total sympathy. "It's hard for mature students, really, really hard." They see this happening every semester. But they hope I don't quit. Oh I can't quit. If I quit now a mountain of debt would come crashing down on me for absolutely no gain whatsoever, I would have to return my grants and bursaries and I would be even longer out of a job.

September - commuting

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Month one. My whole life is sooooo different. There are 30 people in my class. One woman, Carol, is 48 years old. Everyone else is 18, 20, 23 and one 25-year-old. No one has been rude enough to stare at me or says anything but I can't help being aware of the divide.

The profs are friendly enough although only one is older than I am: a retired former book publisher who teaches the History and Politics class.

The commuting is really hard getting used to. Classes start at different times each day and I have to calculate getting to the commuter train at 2 hours before I am scheduled to arrive at the college. I can walk to the commuter station closes to me which arrives two minutes too late for me to transfer to another train going to my college. I have to wait another 40 minutes for the next train. This could mean almost an extra hour longer making it almost 3 hours to get to campus.

Or I can keep it at 2 hours and ride my bike to a further train station which is going to campus directly. I choose to ride my bike which I know I will only be able to do September, October, maybe part of November because I am no winter cyclist. I will try to get into a carpool, or else I will have to pay an extra $125 public transit fare when I can no longer ride my bike. Or add on the extra hour of travel by walking to the closer station.

Still, I look at the benefits. I get plenty of exercise I had no reason to get before this, and what with carrying 20 lbs of backpack on my shoulders filled with a laptop and textbooks. I have purpose in my life, an attainable challenge and I have already lost one pound.

Orientation

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Okay. It is Sept 3 11:01 pm by my clock and I just arrived home from Orientation 15 minutes ago. Whatta day, whatta day.

The actual orientation was anti-climactic. They herded us to and fro then sent us in different directions depending on what we applied for or needed. No opportunity to talk to anyone really. I signed up for the "mature students networking club". I managed to get a good locker, close to my class, in the Oklahoma Land Rush they foisted on us in selecting our lockers.

Upon cursory examination none of my profs had a glint of psychosis about their body language, which put me at ease. They all seemed like regular folks. None of them guaranteed they would make us men by the end of the year, thank God. I will have to read 3 daily newspapers each day though. This is the "textbook" for the History of Journalism class.

A couple of the 90 students accepted into what will be 3 classes may have been pushing 30, but that's as close to old as I could see. The Mature Students Get-together wasn't much of a get-together. We sat in a lecture room while two people from "counseling" talked 99 percent of the time. "Counseling" exists for students who may suffer anxiety.

The real drama, and there was drama, happened around my attempts to have a successful day.

I had worked it out that I could take the commuter train from the train station not too far from where I live, and arrive in the College Town in about 20 minutes. The train schedule said the trains arrived about every 10 minutes at rush hour and I showed up and waited. What the schedule doesn't say is that the trains do indeed arrive at those times BUT THEY DON'T STOP AT THAT STATION GOING SOUTH. They only stop going north.

I had to go south. So I jumped onto the subway to catch the next best station I could in the time I had, the last subway stop in my city before the country begins. There was another train stop nearby which would take me to another commuter train station and then I could catch the 24 bus right into the College.

I arrived at the last subway at 9:13am. I had planned to be at the College at 9:30 for the orientation which would begin at 10:00. The last commuter train to leave the last subway would come at 9:20. What I didn't figure on was the shortcut to the train station from the subway closes at 9:00am for some God unknown reason. So I tried to run outside the station, around to the street entrance for the train and buy the ticket, but the 9:20 swished by as I was trying to do so.

I now only had a choice of taking the interconnecting buses across another town (a community that lies between my City and College Town) to get to the College, which would take at least an hour, or I could take a cab.

I knew the cab would be pricey but better for my nerves, so I hailed down a cab with a nice Sikh cabbie and off we went. We got to the College in half an hour but the tab was $60.00 with tip. I paid it with my VISA because I didn't have that much cash with me, and all flustered because I was already late for orientation, I paid and ran out.

When I went to put my VISA away I realized I no longer had my wallet. I dropped the wallet in the cab, which was now gone. I brought almost all my ID in that wallet because I had to present a lot of it to collect my government check, etc. It had my social security card and health card which could be valuable items on the black market.

So with this on my mind I put the VISA away and managed to go through the orientation, speeches, etc. I was glad I at least had the VISA because I could get cash on it. Time for taking our photo ID and I discover I have now lost the VISA card. It was nowhere.

However, at security, bless their hearts, someone did find it and turned it in. For a while they wouldn't give it to me unless I presented identification which of course I did not have, but at the end they relented and gave it to me.

I couldn't collect my government loan check, get a photo ID taken, get my software from the IT department, my additional health and dental coverage because I had NO government issued photo ID, no social security card and no health card to show them. I did still have my passport but that was at home.

I partook of the free lunch and then left, walking down to the nearest bank to get money out of an ATM off my VISA card. At the ATM I realized that it wasn't the VISA I could withdraw money on, it was my MasterCard which was in that wallet.

Turning my cellphone back on (it was off for the orientation and speech making) I heard the wife of the cabbie had called me and said her husband found my wallet and wanted to give it back to me. Nice to see religious people acting like religious people should. They lived in a northern suburb.

However, I had no cash and no way of getting any cash. I was seriously facing either walking home, a long, long way, or getting another cab for $60.00. I comforted myself with a turkey sandwich and beer at a charming Cafe (VISA was good for that at least) and called my friend Paul as he was the only friend I had with a car that I knew I could reach at that time. Dear sweet Paul did jump in his car to come and pick me up.

By this time it was rush hour though, with all cars streaming out of downtown towards the eastern or western suburbs and it took Paul one and a half hours to reach me. He also offered to drive me to pick up my wallet.

We had to go a little way west and then far, far north. But Paul got to yakking so much he missed the turnoff and ended up downtown again. So again, dealing with the traffic we inched our way back east and then drove north, arriving at the cabby's home two hours after we left the Town. Then we went out and had a beer and pizza, and I am now home.

Everything was in my wallet. I am so grateful that I lost it in the company of a decent human being, and that I have a good friend in Paul.

I have ADHD, but this was spectacular even for me.

On my way

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The stress has worked. My financing has been approved. I just might make it. I am 63 years old and about to go to college with 18 to 20-year-olds. Orientation is the first step. I wish I had another fool like me to lean on. I am told lots of mature stuents are in higher education these days, I won't be alone. But I am so nervous.

Orientation will be Set 3. I am both excited and very nervous. My entire world is about to change.

My financial situation

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I spent the summer calculating my finances over and over again. My entire wealth amounted to $800. Yeah, right, really. At 63 this is what it comes to. I could only do this if I could get the necessary government loans, and just keep applying for grants and bursaries.

This was stress but a different kind of stress. Waking up each day wondering when I would get a job again was hell because beyond some simple acts like looking for jobs, applying for jobs, keeping up with contacts there was nothing more I could do. I could do everything needed to do, everything I could do and it would not guarantee me employment.

Going to college was stress where progress was possible. If I did certain things, other things would happen, I would move along. If I applied for the government loan I would get it. If I applied for the grants and bursaries and I was qualified, I would get them. If I studied and passed my tests I would get my diploma. It was stressful but the stress would get me somewhere.

So I plugged ahead.

How it all Began

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In February, 2009 I found myself unable to get a job. The recession was in full blast and my work sources had dried up. I was unemployable. I was 63 years old.

For the last 20 years I had been trying to do the "right", "sensible", employable thing. I had shelved my dreams, squashed my gifts and talents and decided to "get a job" in the corporate world. I hated it, but jobs there could be counted on. I had been taught that if a woman could type she could always get a job and I certainly could type. So type I did. Until February I realized it was the 2009 recession and the demand for typing had passed with the analog age.

I am divorced with no children, so luckily I have no responsibilities other than myself. On the other hand, I don't have the moral support that close family ties will provide. I have always been staunchly independent but I can sense this might be too much independence to handle.

So having nothing more to lose, and having no safety net underneath me I thought maybe it was the time to become trained and educated at something I knew I could be good at. What was there to lose? Revelations like that can give you incredible courage.

In May, I applied to go to college full-time and train to be a journalist and was accepted.

I chose the college with a 2-year program because I wanted this diploma faster rather than longer. Other colleges had 3-year programs but with the same number of courses. This decision increased my stress level for a couple of reasons. One was that cramming 3 years into 2 is not as much fun as it would seem to be at first thought. The second was that this college was in a town outside the city where I lived. I did not have a car and that meant traveling by commuter train and 2 different transit systems equaling 4 hours of travel a day.

I had always wanted to go to college or university. I imagined basking in learning and cammaraderie, discovering new ideas, having loads of fun with intelligent peers my own age. But this was 40 years later and most of the other students would be the age I should have been if I went to college. I was wise in many ways, but totally clued out in others. I have been self-educated in a liberal arts kind of way. I have read a lot, I am an information freak, I philosophize a lot, I thrive in intellectual environments and thought perhaps this would be the link between me and the young students.

But it was scary. I had some kind of success and status in the open world, I had none at a college level. What was I doing? But I went ahead and am doing it anyway.