I'm a 50 year-old student

I'm a 50 year-old college student. I'm actually enjoying being at school. I'm exercising my brain, learning new things. I'm usually the oldest person in my class, and that's alright. I'm usually older than my teachers and that's not alright.

I decided to go back to school so I could understand what I was doing at the time at my job. I was taking company logos and creating some kind of library or loyalty cards with them. Since during most of my career, I was in software sales, this was quite a challenge. I'd always dreamed of doing something creative that didn't involve a sales presentation. Well, I got it. But after the first semester, I didn't have that job anymore and taken a photography class that I liked so much I decided to change my major from graphic design to photography. My photography teacher was older, maybe that's why I liked it. Actually, I did like the old school type of teaching. He taught us to build a pinhole camera, really old fashioned. Then we spent the semester in the darkroom printing our pictures. Oh man, I loved it! I liked thinking that Ansell Adams and Edward Weston did that too. That they would spend hours on a picture until it was exactly as they wanted it. What passion!

That was in South Carolina. We're in Texas now. It is not a bad school, it's pretty much like the rest of the schools in the country. All going digital. The students don't even know what an aperture is, or what happens when you stop up or down. The basic stuff. Oh yeah, they can use a graphics computer program much better than I can, but if they are presented with a problem, they don't know what to do, they never had the basics, they were born in the computer age. They didn't grow up with it. I might even say they didn’t grow up. “I can't take more than one class, I have a baby at home!” “I got into a fight at the bar and if you think I look bad, you should see the other guys.” Poor babies!

We had a business of photography class yesterday afternoon. Most of the kids were doing email on their computers. I and another couple of "older" kids asked questions about copyright laws, business plans and rates. I was hoping they were paying enough attention to learn something! After all, they are still young enough to multitask. I probably would have done the same thing at their age. I now try to read about the subjects that interest me. Remember I have to get my brain busy if I don't want to have Alzheimer's. Actually nobody would realize it if I did have that disease because it wouldn’t be much different from today. But that is a topic for another time.

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Life As I see it

I'm a 50 year-old student