Mature-aged and part-time ...

So we sat - two hundred of us - in the tiered ranks of red upholsterd chairs with fold-away writing tables being welcomed to student life at Sydney University.  We were overwhelmingly female, predominantly white, almost entirely able-bodied and at the younger end of the mature-aged range.  I was nearer the other end of the spectrum than most but I was not the most mature-aged by a good fifteen to maybe twenty years.  I don't think there was any essential piece of information imparted during the two-hour session but I felt like a student sitting there; a new student.

The presentations - by a sweet but earnest student counsellor, a couple of engaging second-year mature-aged undergraduates, the rather ditsy President of the SRC who presumed we would all be as fascinated by campaigns as the SRC, an SRC case worker with a perfected aura of authentic proleteriansim one no longer sees in the 21st Century, a polished promo by the President of the Union (a man who is clearly fond of himself), a run through the learning centre's services and Aanswers to questions from a librarian who could have been Roy Orbison's younger (and fatter) brother - left me with a strong sense that I need to take this student business seriously.  That in itself made the evening worthwhile.  It's good, I think, that I came away with a hint of nervous tension.
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