I'm not always wrong, but when I am I hope there's always soup involved.

The Leaving Cert was really hard. I know I may be preaching to the converted here, but during my lifetime of absolute first world problems, the Leaving Cert was one of the most distressing and scarring experiences I have ever endured and I hope to God it stays that way. That being said, I feel like I really earned college, that my presence there was won over the space of two years of nervous breakdowns, cramming completely irrelevant information and, in one mortifying incident, crying in class. (It was Irish, I'd just found out I'd failed my mock, I was a ball of hormone and weepy female emotion) (....Still doesn't make up for it, Christ that memory makes my heart shrivel in shame) So yeah, my college attendance is more than justified. And I reserve the right to participate in college life whatever way I see fit. If that means sparse lecture attendance, slightly delirious tutorial attendance and the occasional chats in the back of a lecture hall, then so be it.

Mature Students. As much as I try to avoid generalised hatred, when it comes to mature students it is a struggle. The affronted look I receive from a mature student on any given day, as I go about my business, carrying out my work with the exact same level of competence as them, with a lightheartedness I like to call a "good attitude", enrages me. Because they refuse to respect my right to be there, like I do for them.

Today a good forty minutes of a tutorial was wasted on the following exchange, repeated again and again between an aggressive, obnoxious mature student and a shy, helpful tutor:


Asshole: Regarding fieldwork, when it comes to picking a site, we can pick any group of society to study?
Shy, Helpful Tutor: Yep, any site will do, as long as the people remain the same for each session of study and subjects are interacting with each other.
Asshole: What about an emergency room?
Shy, Helpful Tutor: Yes that works because the staff and setting remain the same.
Asshole: What about, like, Mass?
Shy, Helpful Tutor: Mass actually won't work, because there's no interaction between a group, just responding. But anywhere else is perfectly fine.
Asshole: I don't understand, you said anywhere.
Shy, Helpful Tutor: Any other site is fine, just not mass, you'll find you have very little to study.
Asshole (becoming obviously frustrated and confused): So will an AA meeting work?
Shy, Helpful Tutor: Yes it will. Any site will work if you have a group interacting.
Asshole: But not mass?
My Brain: YOU CAN'T STUDY MASS, WHAT IS SO HARD TO UNDERSTAND, ABSOLUTELY ANYTHING IN THE WORLD BUT MASS, PRAYER GROUP YES, BIBLE STUDY FINE, NOT MASS, STOP SAYING MASS, WHY DO YOU EVEN WANT TO STUDY MASS!?

Rinse, lather, repeat. For forty god damn minutes.

Because of their time off, during which they've worked jobs they hated, reared children who were clearly a disappointment and held relationships that obviously weren't fulfilling, mature students think their life experience have empowered them with an all encompassing knowledge. And while I don't doubt that they have a maturity I have yet to grasp, it doesn't make them more superior when it comes to the study of 19th Century poetry. That shit's pretty theoretical, guys. I have as much ability to understand, study and discuss it as anyone. I can also do it without being a raging, pretentious, undermining asshole. So when I work up the courage to volunteer a point in those nervous sweat boxes known as tutorials, you shooting me down with an incorrect interpretation and a withering glare just makes me hate you even more.

However, I am generally a positive and upbeat person (that last statement is technically not true in any way, shape or form) and I try to see the good in most things. So when a member of a social group I despise does something awesomely charming, which considerably brightens my day, I want to give them props for it. In the same tutorial in which the engaging Mass Debate took place, in the corner sat a different mature student. On her arrival to class I had subconsciously labeled her in my internal mental folder as "quirky" (she was wearing a delightful pink frilled dress, over white jeans and had an air of disarray). I would have happily ignored her for the hour. When she had settled herself in her corner, from her bag she removed a jam jar. Within the jam jar there was a grey, milky liquid, resembling homemade mushroom soup. She placed the jar on the desk, and left it there, untouched. For the entire class. when we were gratefully dismissed, she put it back in her bag and went about her merry way. Good luck soup? Homegrown alien? Who knows. All I know is that it was freakin' fantastic. Bravo, quirky mature student. You have done so much for you race just by being you.

Niamh (Can't count in prime numbers)