With the May long weekend over, we enter the final push towards “year end” – if you’re academic, which we are.

Someone might read my heading and dissent.  Many university students have been out for a month already.  Isn’t it only grade school that extends through June?

Actually, I did about a sixth of my degree in spring and summer terms.  Some were condensed courses, offered May through June at double pace.

I always enjoyed spring and summer terms.  Of course, I like school in general.  However, there seems to be a different dimension to summer learning.  It’s like a vacation where you are in courses.  Somehow, the point of view is different.  Summer courses seem separate from the main year ones, even though they go on the same transcript at the end.

In my present reality, everyone around me is in school, while I’m not.  I function as the support person:  I make breakfasts, pack lunches, and sometimes leave dinners to be eaten by the students later that day, when I will be away.  I help with homework.

When I was in university, I never imagined the life I have today.  Getting my degree meant everything.  I had to metamorphize.  I wasn’t good enough until I got that degree.  That’s what I’d been taught since I was a small child.  It’s not what I believe today, by the way, but I’d been brainwashed.

While getting the degree didn’t solve all my problems, it qualified me to have a family.  Now, I gently guide them along like a slow current.  It’s not the manic all-nighters that I spent at university.  We live in a gentler time now.

I’ve been told many times that university is a place you go to get a degree, then you return to life.  I’d love to go back to university sometime, but right now I’ve got this other life to live.

As a support worker, you get some leisure time.  You can take up a pastime like drawing, for instance.  You can observe the world around you instead of always having your nose in a textbook.

Here’s my latest experiment.  I’ll be back.  Cheers:)