Student 4 Lyfe, Yo

I admit that while I calmly stated that I neither desired nor dreaded coming back to school and was accepting it with grace, I might have been hiding the fact that I actually was not looking forward to it at all. The combined elements of 1. courses I wasn't interested in with 2. all of my friends gone from campus, I knew that it wasn't going to be a very fun semester. Indeed, my only friends now are my roommates and my fellow workmates (from jobs one and two), though I don't have much of a social life anymore. I'm not complaining; my life is dandy just the way it is, though I could do with a smidge more time when it comes to studying for big midterms (see: this Saturday morning at nine a.m.!). Anyway, nobody wants a not-fun semester and neither did I; all I wanted to do was get this term over with, finish up my degree, graduate and get working. I wanted real-life work experience, money so I could travel more and, more importantly, a break from school. I've been formally educated for just about two decades now - twenty whole years of school. I figured it was about time to get up from my seat in class, stretch my legs and see what I could do outside.

Now that I'm back into the swing of things on and off-campus, I'm not sure I'm all that ready to leave. Because the truth is, as much as I can get really tired of schoolwork and complain about how useless lectures are, how many readings I have to do and papers I have to write, I really do love learning. And because learning is offered here at school I suppose I sort of love school too, but just by association. I no longer love school for the friends and lifestyle it gives me because those elements of my life are successfully maintained outside of the campus-bubble now. But, oh, how I'm going to miss engaging in seminar discussions and reading a particularly powerful passage at night and then being able to bring it up in class the next day and analyze it for deeper meanings. School is my link to activism, special lectures, good literature, educational events and conferences. And now that I'm almost done with it, I can't imagine living without it.

I suppose this might be what a lot of graduating students deal with right about now, with first term almost over. I've already attended the Career Fair and the Graduate and Professional Education Fair in preparation for What's To Come aka My Future, and as much as those options felt like realities at the time, they no longer do. The fact of the matter is that I'm staying in town even after I'm done with my courses. I'm on a contract with Job #2 that goes until Spring and Job #1 can keep me busy too, so I've got some good reasons to stick around. Despite the fact that I wasn't looking forward to moving back here, once I settled in I started looking for reasons to stay.

Moreover, staying in town means that I still get to go to school. Which really excites me, as evidenced by the following:

- I've spent hours looking up courses that I might want to audit next term. So far, I have fifteen courses under three different departments (Sociology, Environmental Studies, Global Studies). Tuesdays and Thursdays are really popular lecture days, apparently.
- Despite the above, I still have six more departments whose course offerings I want to check out (Religion & Culture, English, Classics, History, Latin, Geography, Near Eastern Studies, Spanish, Languages & Literature). Did I say six? I meant nine.
- I turned to one of my co-workers last week and said, "Do you want to know what I'm really excited about? I'm really excited about this Global Citizenship Conference my university is hosting in March. Like, really. I can't wait to go. Did you know they had Stephen Lewis as the keynote last year? I was soo sad I missed it, but I've been to one of his lectures before and it was amaaazing. Man, I wonder who they're going to get this year... Ooh, I'm so exicted!" I was met with a blank stare and an, "Okayyy..." I immediately shut up and went back to my computer screen where I proceeded to email the conference organizers about when tickets would be on sale.
- I registered for the Social Entrepreneurship Conference that's being held in two weeks. I'm pretty excited for that one too.
- I'm quite sad at having to miss the Human Rights Conference this weekend.
- I looked up my favourite professors and their course listings just to see what they were up to (and if any of them fit into my audit schedule for next term).
- I also look up textbook listings for courses that sound interesting. Then I go and find them for cheap at used book shops. (This is exactly how I landed myself in my audit class this term - the title of one of the books caught my eye in the University Bookstore and then I saw it for sale at $1 at the used book store down the street. Five minutes later the book was mine and five days later I was in the class.)
- When I'm on campus between classes and commitments I browse the textbook aisles at the Bookstore just to, y'know, see what's up.

All of that was just a really long way of saying: geekiness floats my boat, I love learning and I think I'm glad I'm still in school.
4:28 pm