And another thing...

Here's the thing. I'm old. Not so old as to be elderly, but well into middle age. I mark my 48th year next January. By this time in my life I should have figured out what I want to be when I grow up, and should by damn be doing it.

Since graduating from college in 1986 I have wanted to go back to college. It wasn't a high priority in the 80s and 90s, and I did other things. Other things that for the most part I don't regret, exactly. Mostly. But now I'm doing the school thing again, and while I enjoy the academic scholarship, there are other aspects of college life that, well, I'm having trouble with. Refer to the second sentence there at the top of the post.

My classmates are, with few exceptions, 25 (or more) years younger than I am. Comparisons are odious. I catch the brunt of the odium in this comparison. And hells bells, a goodly number of my professors are younger than I am.

Let's review my reasons for going back to school.

1. I love the academic scholarship. check
2. I'm not doing much else, so why not do something I want to do? check
3. I am stuck in this backwater reservoir of bigotry and intolerance, trying to find a spark of intelligent camaraderie. not so much
4. This leads to further scholarship, upward and onward. eh, I can't see it from here

For the nonce, let's review #3. One of the plans was to meet people with whom I could have intelligent conversations, people who have something in common with me, get my jokes, can follow my logic. The problem I've encountered is my position as student. Maybe I'm not putting myself out there enough (a real possibility; I have introvert tendencies) but I've found no other students who will really engage with me. We don't have much in common, really.

The people who are closer to my age with similar cultural histories are the professors, but since I'm a student, it's inappropriate to get too close to them. It causes tricky ethical problems of dual relationships.* So once again I'm a social misfit.

Think I'll address #4 in a subsequent post.

* "Social workers enter into dual relationships when they engage in more than one relationship with a client, becoming social worker and friend, employer, teacher, business associate, or sex partner." Replace "social worker" with "instructor, professor, administrator, or staff" and "client" with "student" and there ya' go. It messes stuff up. Oh, and that "sex partner" bit? I don't see that happenin'. Ain't going there.