Thursday, August 14, 2008

Geriatrics

I've made it through three days of this intensive biomedicine class. It feels like a lot longer than that though. After day 2, I remembered that I don't really like studying dense science-y stuff. Especially after a full day of class. It made me miss work life even more, especially the part of not having to study when I got home, and even more so the part about unwinding with a glass of wine. One glass of wine after school and there's no way I'd get any of the reading done. But yesterday, after day 3, I remembered that a) this course is pass/fail, b) I was pre-med once upon a time and vaguely remember a lot of this stuff and c) I really don't have to do all the reading since we divide it up among our study groups anyway. So, last night, I did a few hours of my part and then settled in for Olympics watching and an early night sleep.... and it totally made a difference in my happiness, which really is the most important, don't you think? No point in killing myself. I'm not in med school after all.

On to another topic. Age. The other day my study group divulged our ages. I admit, I was the one who brought it up when we were discussing how uncomfortable the chairs we have to sit in for seven hours a day are. I interjected with "But, it's probably because I'm old." Great springboard for bringing up age. Real slick. It turns out, that-- surprise-- I was indeed the oldest at the table. And not just by a few years. The rest of my group's ages are: 23, 24, 24, and 27. It's not a huge deal... It's just different from what I'm used to working in TV where I was on the younger, if not youngest, side of my co-workers. I liked being younger for many reasons. It's a new perspective now. I'm getting used to telling people here that I had a whole other career before this.... and the kids love the mention of having worked at Comedy Central. (Although when I said that I worked for Colin Quinn, no one at the table had heard of him. I don't know if that's a testament to their age or to Colin's dwindled fame or to them just being unaware of pop culture, but come on, he was on SNL, people.) Yesterday I did bring up a "Friends" reference (from the last episode-- where Pheobe calls Rachel and starts a rumor that the plane she's on has a broken phalange. We were learning about phalanges... and fyi-- they're bones in the hand). Anyway, no one knew the episode I was talking about, but at least they had heard of "Friends." At the very least, I'm learning to curb my pop culture reference more toward mainstream for this crowd. As their elder, it's the least I can do.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Which one was Colin Quinn? Did you mean Kevin Nealon? I think you meant Kevin Nealon. Jimmy Fallon?