Up until today, everything I knew about university was second-hand. For years, I’ve heard adults describe university as a place to, “discover yourself.” A place to “define who you are,” and, “explore your future.”
University kind of sounded like an artsy movie.
I figured that after sitting through official university lectures, I’d be Changed as a Person. I’d willingly read Hamlet, and probably say stuff like, “How could I not have recognized the poetic intricacies of Shakespeare’s prose before?”
Heck, I’d be able to legitimately use the word, “prose,” in a sentence.
I thought that after a whole day of university, I’d have a Confucius quote memorized for any given situation. If someone gave me a hard time on the bus, I could tell them that, “He who seeks a path of violence begets only a hallowed spear.”
But my high school-adapted mind made foolish assumptions about university. For one thing, the biggest change I noticed between high school and university has nothing to do with my Inner Core or Sense of Self: mainly, I noticed that people have an enhanced sense of body space in university.
Nothing in existence moves slower than a pack of grade nine students (other than plot lines from movies made in the 70’s). But in university, Slow Walkers are almost nonexistent. The almost-extinct species no longer travels in packs. The rare herd of Slow Walkers will actually acknowledge the fact that someone is walking behind them, and then will diverge to let them past. People hold doors for each other.
The best thing about being an official university student, though, is impressing all of my 12-year-old brother’s friends.
Yup, they’re in awe of my four months of summer vacation.