Just so Darn Cute.

What is it like to be a non traditional student in classes filled to the brim with giggling, neon clothes wearing, teen aged girls and sullen teen aged boys? It is hilariously interesting.

These kids are all so young, barely graduated from high school, young. (In at least one case, are still a senior in high school.) You can smell high school on them. You can see it in their blase attitude, or their bubblegum pink lip gloss. You can smell the teen spirit.

I did not take classes right out of high school. I was too busy being punk rock, and hanging out watching Spiderman with my best pal. I thought I was taking a year off, then I would kick it in to high gear and head back to college. I never did kick it into high gear, and have sloooowly taken classes over the past thirteen (gah!) years. (I took my first college course, English 101, in 1995, my senior year of high school.)

In my Spanish class the students sit in little groups who obviously know and are friend with each other. There is a group of six girls who sit to my left who giggle and talk through the class. Yes, it is an annoyance, but they are so full of tee hee hee silliness that you just want to put them behind glass and watch the female teenager in all of her glory.

I sit next to a young girl, too. She is sweet and soft spoken (in class). She doesn't giggle through class, and seems eager to learn. Our first day Prof. Z asked us to interview each other. We were to introduce our table mate to the class after we were done. The questions were as follows- what our major is, what our future plans are, ask about the family, why we are studying Spanish, and when is our birthday. (I think there might have been one more, I can't remember.)

I had her answers, pretty typical, she wants to be a psychologist, or something in medicine. She has a large family, and isn't really sure what she wants to do in the future.

She asks me. I have no idea what my major is. I am (at this moment) planning on becoming a Lactation Consultant (this was interesting to bring up in a class filled with kids, they didn't know you could "learn how to breastfeed".) She gets to the family question.
"I am married with two girls."
She pauses as she writes this down. Then stops, looks at me, and says "How old are you?"
"Thirty."
"Really, I thought you were like eighteen."
Can I say, that I LOVE her? Seriously, she doesn't seem the type to fake that answer, plus she looked astonished when I told her how old I am.
Love, love, love, that girl.