So, like I said, I have started auditing a class and I am so enjoying being a student again. It's like a Back to the Future movie, except I'm still my age (bah humbug!). I don't try to look like a student or anything - I'm 38, the jig is up. But I honestly don't feel 20 years older than everyone else. It doesn't seem like so long ago that I was one of them. But it was; I was a student in the 1990s. Biologically, I could have given birth to one of these kids. Arrhhhhhh, I'm starting to hyperventilate!!! I'll just stop now.
So has anything changed since I was in college? Well, unlike some of these kids, I never carried my books around in an oversized Louis Vuitton or Balenciaga. My dad would have burned my check book and shredded my credit card if I spent over $1,000 on a school bag. Then he would have disowned me. I also still use the traditional pen and paper in class. Mainly because I find it a lot easier to take notes the old fashioned way. Also because I'm lazy and can't be bothered to lug a laptop around.
But everything else is the same. Except I think now I have better hair and better dress sense. I would go so far as to say wayyyy better dress sense. When I was a freshman, for example, all the good times were taken by the upperclassmen and I was stuck with an 8am class MWF, so I would go wearing pajamas. Seriously. Not kidding. My roommate literally rolled out of bed, put on shoes, shoved a stick of gum in her mouth and went to class. I was classy, I brushed my teeth.
By sophomore year, I was able to avoid 8am classes so I looked pretty decent for class to kind of redeem myself for freshman year. Unfortunately, I was totally into the grunge look. I - gulp - wore clogs! Oh, that was hard to admit. But it's true. I wore clogs. With socks in the winter.
I also wore things like this:
I was so proud of my flannel shirt collection. If only I had just admired Kurt Cobain's music. But nooooo, I had to copy off his wardrobe too.
And this is how I dealt with my hair most mornings:
Don't judge me - I was actually considered quite stylish back then.
I think female Lebanese students would have a heart attack if they wore what I wore when I was in college. Funnily enough, I was called a good dresser. One sorority sister told me that I looked like I stepped out of an episode of the original 90210. That was a huge compliment. I had a poster of Jason Priestly above my bed in my dorm room. Another girl in my dorm thought I was some spoilt snob because a lot of my clothes were from Benetton. Yes, you read right, Benetton. Apparently, it was the Marc Jacobs of my day.
Yes, it feels like yesterday that I was some teen with a backpack on my shoulders and a final paper on my mind. Sometimes, when I look in the mirror I think yeah, I could pass for a college student again, you know, if I overlook the gray hairs, ignore the wrinkles and squint really hard... from a distance... in the dark. Yep, I could totally be 18 again!
