One year on

Do you know what you were doing a year ago today?  Where were you on 17^th November 2010?  To most people this is not an easy question to answer, but to me that day was hugely significant!

The 17^th November 2010 was my last day working for the RNLI, my last day after more than 15 years of daily toil, weekly meetings, monthly paydays, quarterly appraisals and annual statements!  I left behind some great friends, but I also left behind some other people...

Since then I spent 6 months in Australia, travelling around, sleeping in hostels, camper vans, tents and swags.  I went diving with sharks, snorkelling with turtles, feeding wild dolphins, cuddling kangaroos, holding wombats, eating crocodiles, and a million other things too.  I met some amazing people, new friends from around the world.  I learnt of the history of Australia, and the oppression of the indigenous people.  I had a truly awesome time!

Now I’m back in the UK and having so much fun in Winchester.  Great new friends, and a really enjoyable course.  Winchester is a lovely place to live too.  This week I have visited a Wolf Sanctuary, run around Winchester with some friends and a video camera, and drunk homebrew into the small hours.  A-FLIPPIN-MAZING!

By a long long long way, this has been the best year of my life, the challenge now is to enjoy the next 12 months even more!

Age concern

I don’t want my blog to be exclusively about age (so why call it 40 year old student you ask), but I have been challenged about my attitude.  I have been full of joy (yes really) at how I have been accepted as one of the gang by my fellow students, but have I accepted them as adults in the same way?

Don’t take this the wrong way, I do not feel superior in any way (I’m more likely to think of myself as inferior), but do I really think of them as equals?

So on what criteria should I assess this?  Surely to think of equals then age must be completely irrelevant in every way, the fact that I may have experienced more of life than many students is just happenstance, and some of my fellow students have experienced things that I haven’t.  On a recent facebook survey I came out with a lower mental age than many of my new friends, maybe I should answer some questions of my own.

Do I get on well with my coursemates? Yes.

Do we have lots of things in common?  I would say so.

Do I enjoy socialising with them? Yes, very much.

Do I think of them as immature? Not at all, some seem more mature than I am!

Do I see some of them being long term friends? Absolutely, many of them.

Would I date one of them? Erm, this is where my ageism has been challenged!  In the incredibly unlikely event that somebody would be attracted to a 40(ish) year old with a potato-shaped head, how would I feel about dating a teenager?  I have more than one friend who has told me that it would be wrong to date an 18 year old, although at the same time other friends would give me kudos if I did ‘pull’ a teenager.  Many in today’s society would look down on me for it, but should that matter?  If you like somebody, should anything else matter at all?  I’m seeing my parents this weekend, and I know that one of the first questions my mum will ask me will be whether I’ve met any nice girls at Uni!

I guess I don’t know the answer, and it is probably irrelevant anyway, but just in case, for any if my female friends...

(in Joey’s voice) How you doin... ;-)

Now I'm here

I’m not going to tell a lie, I was nervous about coming back to Uni.  I wasn’t worried about whether I was clever enough to do it, or whether I could write in half-decent English, and I certainly wasn’t worried about the workload!  I was worried about whether I would fit in amongst 18-21 year olds.  I knew that I was daft enough as long as I was given the chance.

I have met many new people here at Winchester, and they are without exception great people! Funny, silly, friendly, genuine, open, warm, lovely, I could go on!  The other creative writers on my course are all incredibly talented, the work written by my course mates so far has been really good, and the group work has been so enjoyable.  Also the socialising at various pubs around the place has been great, and I have thoroughly enjoyed every second of my time here!

So to my new friends here in Winchester, you are all brilliant! J