I’ve been back in the workforce for about 2 weeks now and I’ve noticed that working on a university campus has its ups and downs. Ups? There’s always some place to find coffee. Downs? I only graduated from my degree program about 6 years ago, but so much as changed and I’ve been so disconnected from the campus that I just feel out of place sometimes. Really, what I feel is just OLD.
Allow me to provide you with a (humorous) list of my reasoning:
1. When you ask for a spoon and the cashier tell you that they’re $0.25, and instead of being mad about being charged for a spoon you instead grumble to yourself, “Back in my day, they were only charging $0.10!”
2. You over hear students recapping their wild and crazy weekends and when you think about your own, you realize that the most exciting thing that happen was that you managed to catch most of The Green Mile on AMC.
3. While sitting amongst the students at lunch, you realize that you’re the only one not surrounded by notes, textbooks and highlighters.
4. The fact that you actually bring a lunch instead of buying a day-old slice of pizza.
5. Members of student clubs looking for new pledges or students campaigning for something actually ignore you instead of stopping you and make you late for wherever you’re headed.
6. You get to park in the prime staff parking areas instead of arriving on campus a half-hour early to battle it out for a parking spot in the dodgiest back lot on campus.
Add these things to the fact that I’m hobbling around campus with aching hips caused by pregnancy, and it’s no wonder why I get doors held open for me all the time. Could you only imagine the students’ reactions if it were actually nice outside and my baby gut was not hidden underneath the layer of my jacket? Ugggh.
What’s been making you feel old lately?
She Writes Words 
I definitely feel a bit old when I do make it up to the campus these days! I had to run in the other day to get a copy of my transcripts and I couldn’t believe how crazy busy student street was!!
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Topher makes me feel old these days. He likes to play computer games (nickjr.com) and today I told him he needed to take a break from the computer and do something else. He was beside himself, and I actually said “Topher, we didn’t HAVE computers when I was your age!” Man, did I feel old … I don’t know if it was just because I lived in a small town or what but nobody had a home computer – we each got 15 minutes of computer time/day at school and it was the highlight of the day, especially when you got to print something off and got to rip the edges off the retro computer paper :)
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