18 Days
Take your dried frog pills and put your helmet on
Here I am at the age of
33, about to embark on a full time arty degree. I run a business, a second business, a home, the
lives of 2 almost teenage daughters, a husband, a budgie, a frog and I run myself ragged. And yet I still thought:
‘Surely I can find time to fit in a Uni degree too.....’
Fast forward on through a fantastic part time two year access
course and Voila! Here I am. I’m on
countdown and ready to start in 18 days.
Terribly terrified and extremely excited.
Student finance is all
sorted.
(Probably the most
complicated set of forms that I have ever had the misfortune to fill out)
The makeover and self portrait photo shoot is complete for
the dreaded student ID.
(WHY can they not
just shoot a camera in your face like the good old days...Do they not
understand the pressure of making you take your own bloody picture that’s got
to be hung around your neck for the next three years??? I spent hours on it...and
I still hate it!)
Enrolment is complete!
(This consisted of
Me getting lost amongst the Uni campuses in the rain, being sent to different
buildings by different people, each route involving more rain, and I eventually
showed up at the desk looking pretty damn soggy. Perhaps it is a good thing
that the days of point and shoot ID photos are a thing of the past after
all...)
Commencing countdown, engine’s on
Us girls look amazing in overalls. FACT. Even
us short-arse girls.
When I left school I went into an engineering apprenticeship
and I wore my overalls with pride. I used to feel quite tough, especially that
time when I had a black eye from walking into a hatch in a nightclub. Overalls and a
black eye made me feel Well’ard on the Black Country buses to and from
work. I was less tough however another time
when I screamed like a girl when I got my long ponytail caught up in the
traverse on the Lathe. True story. I had a trip to A&E and a rather
unflattering bald patch beneath my hair afterwards. Even less flattering was
when it started to grow back in tufts which would spike out of the side of my
head and refused to be controlled. It wasn’t long afterwards that I tired of my
engineering dreams and became a full time restaurant cashier, as you do.
In truth though I’ve always had this geeky streak. I’m fascinated by sleek engineering, science, design, obsessed by Terry Pratchett books and Red Dwarf but then I also love all things floaty, creative,
cute, quirky and arty. This is why when losing sleep over which degree course I should choose
I came to decide on Applied arts.
I’m
hoping that it will strike a balance between the inner geek and the inner art
freak within me.
Hoping it will enable me to revisit my youth and original
hopes and dreams...
But hopefully this time without the scalped head and black eye.
Check ignition and may frog’s love be with you....
