Day Care

Despite appearances I did not move to Toronto to be abused by bitchy career servers and their narcissistic overlords. Back in Vancouver each day of slinging beers and scraping stacks of greasy plates was chipping away a small part of my soul. Every night as I hauled in the patio furniture and waited for the last drunks to leave it was glaringly apparent that serving nachos was not my destiny. So I did what most people in their mid-twenties with a useless arts degree do; I went back to school.

And not just any school, one of the best for my new discipline, 25,000 students deep, the campus located in the heart of Toronto's belching teeming core. This was going to be awesome.

Due to no fault of my own I sleep through orientation. The story involves insomnia, a few too many double cocktails on a patio, swimming in an outdoor public pool in my skivvies and the inevitable visit to McD for a 4am french fry chow down. As you can imagine when my alarm went off at 7:30 motivation to leave my bed could not be found and so I didn't.

The result of my truancy is that as I make my way to my very first class, brain bleary and fogged up from a night of anxiety fuelled insomnia, I have no idea what I'm walking into.



None of the credits from my first degree were "transferable" so I'm right back to first year. But I'm sure there's bound to be some older students, there has to be...oh god, please let there be.

First year classes are always easy to find, just look for the milling confused crowd of kids who are talking a bit to loud and trying a bit too hard to be liked. My first class of my new life is Grammar. I enter the lecture theatre and grab an aisle seat near the front. Slurping my saccharine spiked coffee I look around the room and my heart sinks.

The noise is the first thing that hits you, that high whine, that cadence exploding with enthusiasm. "OMG!" "I CAN'T BELIEVE IT'S THE FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL!" "I HAVE, LIKE, A FOUR HOUR LECTURE AFTER THIS. I KNOW!" "MY ROOMMATE IS SOOOOOO WEIRD!" "OH MY GOD, I KNOW." The girls are all wearing makeup and carefully chosen outfits, smacking their gum as they fidget. The boys, and oh yes they are boys, look like walking Clearasil ads. Their adams apples protrude from their scrawny necks, clothes hang awkwardly on their unfinished frames and quite a few of them are obviously still virgins.

The gum-smacker to my left turns to me and introduces herself.

"You're older aren't you?" Is the second thing she says.

Gum-Smack here is only 19 and it takes only five minutes for me to realize that, other than school, we have absolutely nothing in common.

It's the same in all my classes. Young people, unsure and unrealized, barrage the profs with questions about correct assignment formatting and term grade breakdowns. They're so eager to 'get it right' and 'do well', as if grades were the most valuable thing to be gleaned from this experience. I want to scream at them; "LIFE! This is about life goddamnit! You don't even know who you are yet. Even your faces still look like silly putty. You have no shape yet." But I don't and instead listen to them fuss over details which won't matter one whit once term papers and exams are bearing down on them like a herd of rabid rhinos.



One of my program requirements is a first year english class and though I like my prof and she strikes me as an intelligent and thoughtful person there is one overwhelming factor in this equation; there is no lower common denominator than a first year university english class. The first day we get into groups and do the introduction game. "One person from you group introduce everyone else and include one interesting fact about each of them. After that it will be time for your bottles and a nap." The required reading material fares no better. As I wait in the interminable line at the bookstore I make use of the time to read the first selection. It begins: "The truth about stories is that is all we are."

I wake up to find it's night and I'm locked inside the deserted bookstore. No not really. But I had to fight down a powerful wave of disinterest to wade through the derivative and righteous tone of this simplistic tripe. Only two and a half months to go hurrah!

To survive first year with my mind in one piece I must have a strategy. I must stay focussed.

1. Avoid all extracurricular activities, this includes pub crawls, orientations, sporting events and activist/anarchist groups.
2. Do hang out on campus.
3. Do assignments as soon as they are handed out, no lolly-gagging.
4. Kick serious academic ass.
5. Use my age and cunning to beat their youth and enthusiasm. They won't see it coming mu ha ha ha!

That's right, when those bushy-tailed first are dragging their asses to class after their beer bong or keg stand experience I'm going to be right there in my seat alert, ambitions and ready with a big ole can of whup-ass.

I leave you with some peaceful photos taken at the City Hall farmer's market.