The Professional Academic Counselor is In.

I sought professional academic counseling today.

This is significant, because I don't think I've ever had any academic counseling before. 

I was asked what I wanted to do. I was unsure with my answer (and therefore will refrain from mentioning it here). However, there are a couple of paths I might take, and all of them require that I take a bunch of general ed. classes. 

The professional academic counselor told me, "Older students do well in college classes. They bring something different to the discussions." Well, this is true. We were discussing Wonder Woman and superheroes and femininity and what the reason might be for Wonder Woman to wear such a revealing costume, while the male superheroes are almost always fully clothed in armor or a suit. The other grown up in the room (me, this guy David, and our professor) had the best comment, I had to write it down.

He said, what if the male characters are covered up because we keep our feelings hidden? And Wonder Woman, she's more nurturing and caring, so she can be more open in her costume.

(Actually, this is not a direct quote. I think he said it better than this, but I"m too lazy to get up and get out my notes.)

I loved that. 

We were also discussing how in an essay we read, some guys referred to Wonder Woman as a "butt kicking piece of ass." I said something like, you could put anything in front of "piece of ass" and it's NOT a compliment." We had some discussion on that, about how the actors and actresses chosen for superhero roles are always attractive. This kid talked directly to me (Chris had to tell him my name), and he said something about his girlfriend, and how she likes showing off her body, and he doesn't mind either. I don't know, I don't remember exactly. This is the kid who recently discovered Huey Lewis. He was also reading a Cormac McCarthy novel (blech). I like this kid. He's fun to listen to, and his comments are always smart, but funny. 

Anyway. Back to the professional academic counselor. I don't know what the fuck I want to do. I want to keep taking classes though. We'll see where it goes. 

(Parenthetically speaking.)

A kid in my class recently discovered Huey Lewis & the News. My teacher likes them (unironically. I asked him). That same kid has never heard of Van Halen.

(That kid asked me what kind of music I listen to, and I fumbled it. I said, "Oh, heavy metal - what the fuck? - a little punk, classic rock." Then the only other adult in the room, another student, asked me if I liked Rush. I said, yes, I saw them three times. Now I'm a cool kid, too.)

Another kid raised his hand and called my teacher "professor." (I turned to the girl next to me and said, "Did he just call him 'professor'?" She chuckled. I'm pretty sure he gave us permission to call him "Chris," but no one has done it yet. "Professor" seems a bit much, no? Then again, it's his title, so I'll be respectful. Mostly.) He raised his hand because he wanted to point out that "Chris" had a typo on the instructions he was giving us (he switched in "parent" for "partner"). I turned from the girl next to me and said, "Oh, are you discussing typos? Because there's also one in the syllabus. But my friends all told me not to point it out." He said, "Your friends were right." Pretty sure he hates me now, but that's OK, he looks like my ex-boyfriend. 

That same girl read the rough draft of my essay about Selina Meyer from the TV show "Veep." She hadn't finished writing her notes for me when I left (I finished my notes on hers. I liked it), but before I left, she told me that I don't need to use so many parentheses. She might be right.

The day after something started.

I went to my first session of "English 1" yesterday. I was nervous. I took a "plumcot" as a snack. I turned off my phone and panicked a little. I found a typo in the syllabus. I realized that my professor, who is probably at least ten years younger than me, resembles every man I had a crush on and/or dated or almost married from the age of 14 to the age of 22. He's probably a Leo. I can tell. 

The question of his attractiveness aside, I think this is going to be a fun class for me. We're going to be reading a lot (the full title of the class is "Reading and Comprehension") and writing a lot, and I like those things.

Except for one other guy, who like me, is returning to school after a long absence, the rest of the class is straight out of high school. Maybe some of them have taken other college courses. We went around the room and introduced ourselves. 

The professor made suggestions of the types of things we might say: where we work, the last film we saw, a book we hated, a “fun fact.” “The Lion King” was a movie some of my classmates watched recently. Also “Beauty and the Beast.” Also, the last “Despicable Me” movie. So many of the kids in the class responded with, “I don’t read books.” One guy only reads manga. More than one person had read so few books that to find one about which they held any feelings at all was impossible. One girl only reads “self-help” books but when she described one (because she couldn’t think of a title) it turned out that what she really only reads is true crime. True crime is way cooler than self-help. More than one person decided to talk about a book they loved: “Night,” by Elie Wiesel. Now. That’s a great book. But do you “love it”? No. No one LOVES that book. That book gives you nightmares. That book makes you cry. That book crushes you and then brings you back to life like a butterfly is blowing on your wings.

(I shared some of this description with a friend of mine, and he didn't quite get the last sentence there. It really doesn't make any sense. I just like the picture. I want a butterfly to re-inflate my wings. Maybe a team of butterflies.)

The cool part is, our professor didn't seem judgmental about any of these answers, and if it seems as if I am, I apologize. I didn't mean for it to sound that way. Honestly, I was just happy to have felt like talking about it. 

My next class is Wednesday. We're supposed to read three movie reviews by A.O. Scott. I googled them last night and realized I had already read two of them in the New York Times. Didn't see any of the movies, though.

It felt good to be back in a classroom. I really appreciated it. Is that the right way to say it? I can't wait to get to work. 

Something.

In 26 days, after something like 22 years, I'll be a student again.

A one-class-a-semester, not-gonna-graduate-until-I'm-80, student.

And I say "again," but the thing is, I wasn't a very good student the first time around, so let's just look at it this way:

In 26 days, I'm going to be a student.

After thinking about it for a long time, trying in 2010 (and then apparently forgetting about it until just recently), talking it over with my therapist and friends and Patrick... I went to Long Beach City College (LBCC) and took a test, met with a counselor, and registered for a class.

The test was harder than I expected (my response about the math? "Was that math even human?? If I could do that math, I wouldn't need to be here! I'd be working at Virgin Galactic! Elon Musk would be recruiting me!" I described it to my friend at work, who used to be an engineer, and she identified it as trigonometry. OK, look, I know normal people can do trigonometry. BUT NOT ME.) but the end result is that I am qualified to take entry level english and math classes with all the other freshmen, and I start on August 28th.

The same day J. starts first grade. 

Anyway, it's something. I've been needing a something, and this might be it. Who knows?