The 40 Year Old Student

In an attempt to improve my life, last year I decided to resume my education. I began attending the local community college which my 19 year old daughter also attends. When I first began college 22 years ago I was a journalism major. I later changed to a Psychology major. I am currently an English major. Given that I am no longer at an age where I can ask,"What do I want to do when I grow up?," I am definitely sticking with English.Last semester I was enrolled in 6 units, one class online and one lecture. It was a bit intimidating to go into a classroom with students my daughter's age but after a while I got used to it.
Yesterday was the first day of the new semester and once again I had to face walking into a classroom of teenagers. The upper division English classes are held during the day and the majority of adults attend school in the evening. In my first class I received the usual odd glances as I took my seat behind a desk. Last year I was fortunate enough to be in a classroom with tables,this year not so much. Two of the three classes have those tiny desks that reduce you to your elementary school days. It also doesn't help that I am left-handed and I am not one of those people that writes with a crooked hand and ends up with ink all over their hand. No,I have mastered the art of left handed writing and slant my paper to the right in order to write neatly. This however is hard to do when the tiny desk is on your right hand side. In my first class I sat in the back and since I generally only need my glasses for driving at night, had to squint profusely to read what was on the board-fun times! At the end of class the professor asked us to answer a few questions. One of them was," What is one thing about you that will help me remember you?" I wrote," I am the old lady in the class." I'm pretty sure by tomorrow she will already know my name.
My second class was not so uncomfortable as it is the same classroom as the semester before. Unfortunately the professor who taught my previous class is on sabbatical or else she would have taught this one as well-she was great. This new professor is a bit behind the times-not that it's a problem for me. He does not accept emails,wants all papers printed and turned into him and does not want anyone chitchatting in class. He said that if we wanted to know what John and Mary did last night (come on he could have said Ashley and Josh) that we needed to wait until after class. I found him extremely amusing but as I looked around I noticed that my younger classmates didn't appear to feel the same way. I won't be surprised if there are a lot more empty seats tomorrow.
My final class of the day was math. And yes,being the true English major that I am,I hate math. I got a tip from a student in my class last year that this class was the one to take if you hate math. It is math for liberal arts majors and focuses on logic,statistics and probabilities. I am taking this class with my daughter and 38 other math haters. The evening classes have more adults but they also seem to have more angry people. Last semester I attempted to take an evening class but there were so many whiners,complainers and people who needed attention and therapy that I had to drop. I prefer to get the odd looks from the young'uns. Well this evening class was no exception.Cloudy Cathy (as opposed to Susie Sunshine) found every opportunity to bitch and moan. Fortunately my daughter was sitting next to me and I could flash little notes to her like, "there's always an angry person in the class, someone forgot to take her meds and *SCREAM*," yes, I am so mature. I honestly don't know if I am going to make it through the semester without telling her to shut up.