Roundabouts

Today I had my first real college lecture.  Ever.  Until now I have just had 1-on-1 (or 1-on-4) tutorials, or video classes in black and white.  This wasn't even my original choice of elective course, when the other wouldn't fit in the term schedule, but it was fabulous.  For the first time today I felt confident that I had made the right choice, at last. If you know me you will know that this comes after a spiralling series of disastrous decisions made for the wrong reasons, of which I suffered the full consequences...follow your heart then turns out not to be a cliche after all, despite being told I am 'a fool' for doing so :)


So I here also confess that I am doing a U-turn on the subject of freshmen and the college scene which I um sneered at yesterday. Well, I'm obviously not a freshman -- besides the fact I'm a PG student, I've lost 10 pounds since starting, instead of gaining the traditional 20 (although that was in between Indian food availability).  But after today's lecture, I finally understood that my elders who had advised me that there are two kinds of college students -- those who study and do well, and those who party and barely pass (or flunk) -- were dead wrong.  How else can students balance the intensity of a 3-hour lecture, other than by indulging in letting off steam in suitably preppy pursuits? Although I still draw the line at student guild bad techno music (and R rated music videos involving clown, model and invisible attacker, seriously. whatever channel that was on, it was disturbing both in theme and in terribleness of acting. anyways). Yes, I aim to be the third well-rounded type of student :D, who ideally learns THROUGH fun; who:


- spends time at the kitchen table laughing helplessly with flatmates over crazy tales, textbook in one hand and Magnum (ice cream) in other
- roams around the garden during the lecture break with classmate, eating chocolate, trying to discreetly break in to the small furnished tower building/priesthole, seeing if we can hide under the boughs of the big tree where the birds have just flown in, and soaking our shoes in the wet grass
- seriously considers with classmate forging signature on back of railcard photo since it already has official stamp and the academics are all drinking tea or smoking, then regrets not doing it after getting the real signature which is illegible anyway
- sneaks in at the code protected library door after entering Professor, to avoid having to hunt for ID card again
- squeaks in 5 seconds before seminar start and takes last seat in front row next to Professors, then spends next hour looking angelic and interested (the latter was true) while avoiding shoes, bags, eye contact, and laughing at football gear jokes about, said academics
- finds campus bathrooms without alarms to accidentally set off
- leaves books in reserved pile on library table, with slip marked '5' three of which are actually my own heavy ones, and runs home for lunch of microwaved leftover soup
- finds one more person on my program in my year and actually keeps from bursting into song in front of Professors but merely waves arms, dances around in place and bounces slightly
- is equally upset at current sore throat because it means missing optional class requiring voice, as well as classmate's advance birthday party (to which I have sent card, and am further annoyed because we planned to host it on the weekend and I was going to make fudge. and now I missed notching up another daily pub visit, I'm counting them now)
- is terrified said sore throat will prevent footie participation tomorrow while still necessitating lecture participation. although that would give me more time to purchase proper cleats.
- negotiates unfamiliar roundabouts and uses opportunity to observe mothers and sons eating breakfast on street benches, fathers playing with dogs in the park, mothers pushing prams with fluffy-haired babies with direct gazes, senior citizens with canes and wheelchairs who are less bundled up than I am, hurried girls in leggings, worried businessmen in suits, teens with mohawks, piercings, and diffident gazes, ecstatic Japanese tourists, patient repairmen in fluorescent vests, careful painters on ladders, lamppost flowers scattered on the sidewalk from the rain, and wild geese flying overhead in formation...and still makes it to the lecture on time
- sees classmate on crutches and realizes that I am no longer that girl; life has come full circle and this time, at last I've taken the right turning.