Yes I try to survive a student’s life
The income I had lobbied so hard for covers the rent
with less than fifty a week to spare
You put a fiver on the utilities and it buys you another quarter
Twenty in the uni card
Save ten for the mobile credit
I know all the best free parking spots
I’ve left spare tires in petrol stations all over town
I hide my wallet on the train to pretend it stolen if needs be
Eating is a luxury
On rainy days I hold my breath
Thank god for HEX

But uni is fantastic I should have gone there years before
not high school
My first assignment – “How you came to be here”
– in two thousand words
The lecture theatre groaned with thousands of discouraged minds
trying to imagine stretching their seventeen summers into so many words
I was forty-two
I wrote a ten thousand word auto-biography
and then a two thousand word essay about it
and submitted both
I received an HD from the laughing tutor

Perhaps the IQ test was right
My ex challenged its merits when I scored 78/80 and he only 62
But I have a proven IQ of 140 how did you beat me?
Perhaps he was only as intelligent as I let him be after all

But best of all, or was it worst?
I discovered that the strange looks I always received before
Wasn’t because I said something stupid
But that what I said made them feel stupid
I didn’t mean to – I’m sorry

But you try juggling my life at that time
I ran two homes, mine and my estranged partner’s
Mine was full of décor, curios, hand-me-downs and leftovers
his was full of my children … and his ego
I studied at night
and my catch-phrase at all my tutor’s doors
was “Life got in the way”

They supported me the best they could
they knew I’d make a brilliant teacher
all I had to work out was when I would actually teach
they don’t run primary schools over night
Although perhaps they should for families of shift workers
and students
Nature has half its species live and work at night
In some abstract futuristic movie like dream scene
I see humans doing it too
Families of night dwellers, whole communities sleeping underground and coming out at sunset, switching places with day dwellers …
Please, can I sleep when I’m dead?

I must tell you about Ron Gilbert
The most wonderful mentor any fledgling philosopher could have
May I paint him in words?
Sweet pale blue eyes, behind not so trendy spectacles,
either side of a largish, wine stained, nose
He had hair … from ear to ear
Long, grey and wildly streaming from his head as he waddled quickly about the compound in his plush brown loafers
Bald on top where in winter his black flat cap sat
He wore red shirts or yellow ones and an old black cardigan vest
The flat cap came with a tartan scarf
and an olive green corduroy jacket
as you’d expect

And he “Thalked”
that’s when I knew I liked him
better than any other person I’d needed to listen to
that and he liked Monty Python and my favourite, Douglas Adams
and he liked me when I could quote Goons
I still must memorise more
One can only do “Little Jim” once an episode

He gave me HD’s like lollipops!
for the thousand questions I posed about upping,
for my serious attempts to justify euthanasia or abortions
Ultimately for my answer to WITMOL
What is the meaning of life? – Me -
Well I was forty-two

The greatest thing I learnt from him was to think
not only while talking simultaneously like he did,
but to think sideways
Some people call it lateral thinking
I prefer to take a step to the side … and come in from that angle
Like the last literature exam essay
– I forgot my book notes
So I moved my chair to the side and I wrote an essay about how I would have written the essay
– had I not forgotten my book notes
I gave all the correct information except page numbers
– They were on the book notes
I remembered to add the final all important direction
that I would have proof read my work before submission
to be sure and not put an apostrophe in the wrong its
– I didn’t need book notes for that
I received another HD and another admiring tutor
– for my collection

I have several years yet to starve,
Do students suffer scurvy?
Existing on rice and soup, pancakes and porridge
Black tea leaves in an opp-shop pot, western star on teddy-bear bickies
In the morning smell the six grains of Nescafe left in the canister
Thank god Mum’s still alive to cook a roast now and then

I huddled in second hand doonas,
two pairs of fingerless mittens to keep digits working
when toes gave up hours before
I feel like the Dickens … wish I could write like him
Thank god it’s the antipodes … I’d freeze in civilised climates
The dull glow of a small desk lamp keeps company with the constant computer monitor … the only lights on all night … 24/7
Hunger and cold keeps me from sleep anyway

Why is it, dark circles are never seen under Asian eyes?
Heaven forbid I ever attend a reunion
I don’t think I’d recognise anyone once they’d been regularly fed
Especially not after they’ve clocked up several nights sleep in a row
Some students need their own Weary Dunlop
How any can afford to smoke is beyond me

Is that the plan? To keep us subdued to the point of exhaustion and thus create such a vacuum of necessity that we exceed or expire?
Will I make graduation? Let alone pass
And who will claim my dues once I’ve paid them?