Oi! Get off my lawn.

I feel old. Some uncharitable people would go as far as saying that I am old. With the increase in weddings and birth announcements amongst a slew of other cringe worthy life events I think I'm headed for my mid-mid-life crisis. Although I have a sneaking suspicion I've been battling that since I turned 21. I'm not grappling with any huge existential questions though. I just feel old. Literally old and creaky.

Friday night I was supposed to head out and while I was waiting for my ride I thought sprawling on the sofa would be an appropriate use of my time. Until I woke up at 1 am with a crick in my back and a strong desire to throw my PJs on and crawl into my very inviting bed. Hmm. You can guess the ending of that story. I have officially become that person who really can't be arsed to go out. My work peeps have been harassing me for weeks, fortunately my excuse of 'being a student' is fantastic and usually even makes them sympathetic. I'm not entirely sure what ruse I'll have to put forth once my courses wrap up. Oh. Who are we kidding. I'm going to be a student for life.

Speaking of work, there's been some positive movements on that front and although things are still being tweaked, I may be finding myself a more frequent guest at HQ. This means I'll eventually need to invest in corporate drone-wear. I've been seriously making an effort to expunge the student from my wardrobe and I think I've done well?

There hasn't been a jeans purchase since August 2008. Sneakers? My true besetting sin? Been able to keep that beast at bay as of May 2008. Going shopping sucks now. (I lie! Retail therapy how I love thee!) I'm on a pretty strict self imposed budget. Between my fees, textbooks and pathetic attempts at saving there isn't really much cash left for clothing or sensible shoe purchases. It's hard though! When I see shoes my first immediate impulse is to think 'wow, those would look fantastic with my jeans in X wash.' Then I need to remind myself, 'but they'll look like total ass with dress pants/a skirt/a dress.' In the ideal world I'd still get the shoes if only to wear them on casual Fridays.

There are stores that I don't even venture into anymore. I can't even trust myself to browse to see what I'm missing out on. It's too depressing. The only cold comfort I have is that even in my age appropriate attire teenagers still stop me to say they like what I'm wearing. I feel the need to point out that these are savvy dowtown dwelling teenagers, not suburban ones.

But after a little incident in class this evening I'm not so sure how discerning these kids really are. I popped over to the bookstore before class and was subsequently a bit early for my lecture (because I always over estimate the amount of time it'll take to get things done). While flipping through my book a sweet looking girl came through the door, smiled at me and sat down a few seats to my left. Apparently she registered late and this was her first day. She started asking me questions about the class, how big, how many assignments etc.

We veered off topic (surprise!) and started talking about music. That's when my fellow classmates started to trickle in. As the room filled up she stopped talking about K'naan and asked me if this class? Is it intro to first year research methods? To which I laughed a hearty laugh and informed her that she was not in the presence of undergrads. She scrutinised the class a bit more and said 'yeah, there's no way in hell that these guys were ever undergrads in any life. They look like professors.' With that scathing judgement she picked up her shiz and got the hell out of there fast.

The lesson I'm choosing to take away from this tale of misunderstanding is that I'm a hip old person. (But still old because most of my classmates are around my age add or subtract a year or three.) That's my story and I'm sticking to it.