Oxfords, Penny Loafers, Bookbag: Check!

Goin' Back. Back. BACK, back to school again.

I've been in school for a week and a half.

Yesterday, I think I made a friend.

Her name is Irene, she's a clarinet major, and she's probably 18. I don't know if she is yet aware that I'm "approaching 30." We're going to hang out on Thursday and go get our email addresses, which, inconveniently, is a process that takes place 75 blocks south of Mannes College of Music.

When Irene realized that we were in two back-to-back classes together on Tuesdays and Thursdays, she started speaking to me.
I thought she was an undergrad. I thought a lot of the kids in my classes were undergrads. Turns out they are not, they simply aren't going to go to college. This diploma is all that they're going to have. That's cool! Liberal arts shmiberal arts! Who needs to take an anthropology elective if you know you're gonna rock it out on your Oboe for eternity?

My classes are made up of students who are either 18 and who are over 40. I have seen, maybe, two people who seem to be in the middle, like me, but I have not spoken to any of them. So far, Irene has really kinda been "dissing" the over 40 crowd.

"Jen!," She stops me by slapping me on the bookbag as I head down the stairs, "That lady who was sitting next to me in theory needs to chill the f-out! She doesn't need to answer all the questions. There are other people paying to take this class too!" Then she pauses and becomes a high school student, "I don't want to go to Music History."

Truth is, that lady and I were both answering all the questions. In high school, I didn't participate in class because I didn't always know the answers, and I didn't really understand why I was learning. In college, I didn't participate in class unless I knew my answer was brilliant, which happened very rarely. In both cases, I ended up feeling like a passive observer instead of an active and enthusiastic class participant. The teachers either didn't see me at all, or grouped me in with the slackers. In college, this was devistating, because I really did have a passion for what I was learning. Except for Modern Electronic Technology, which I dropped after a week of listening to the professor explain how bar codes worked.

My point is: In the past I have held a reeeal steady resentment towards any overly-active class participant. That f-ing brown-noser who sits in the front row of class and talks to the TA for 15 minutes before and after class has been #1 on my shit list. Why did she get an A in the class!!! That IDIOT didn't really get it! I GOT IT. . . I just didn't talk to anyone about it. like only douchbags do.)

Until now. I have decided to be that douchbag. Actively. And I love it. I did pay to take these classes. So, I'm taking a front-row seat. I'm interrupting the professor when I don't understand. They all know me. I'm the theremin player.

So, Did Irene not notice that I was being as obnoxious as that loathsome lady? Maybe she was trying to "learn" me the ways of Mannes. Maybe she looks at me and thinks I have Pink Lady potential, but I just need to proove it to the rest of the kids at the senior carnival. In all seriousness, though, what the crap did Sandy ever get from Danny, other than a lifetime (and even that is wishful thinking) of greased-up boot-knocking? (Sure, they defied science in that last scene when the "lightnin' " took off into space, but look at us, 50+ years later with no flying cars.) I bet Patty Simcox is a Nobel Prize-winning neurosurgeon who spent 5 years in Uganda with the Peace Corps and who, now, in addition to her career, runs 3 non-profits while training for triathalons with her best-selling novelist husband, while her kids maintain an organic soybean farm in Rhode Island and raise Triple-Crown-worthy stallions.

My response to Irene's, "I don't want to go to Music History, " lament?

"Why not? Come on! It'll be interesting!!"

Irene, if you google me and find this blog, please don't take offense. You're awesome. And not only because you gave me your locker combination and told me we could share. (For reals, My back is killing me and I really needed a place to store my amp at school. Thanks!) But you're awesome because you play the clarinet and you have helped me actively choose to become a mature student. See ya Thursday!