September - commuting

Posted by Krystyna Hunt in

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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.