Most people celebrate the new year on January 1, but if you’re a reformed swot like me, you’ll know that the freshest start on the calendar is now – back to school season.
I grew up adoring school, and in turn, the month of September.
The summer tans clinging on for dear life as the nights drew in. The begrudged (but secretly comforting) lurch back into a routine of buses and blazers and double maths.
The annual trip to WH Smith to spend my pocket money on the The Perfect Pencil Case was one I anticipated all summer.
When your life is ruled by uniforms and curfews, things like pencil cases really matter.
They set the tone for the next two terms: Who will you be this year?
Will you be sensible and get a basic, see-through one to show you’re not wasting any time?
What about a hot-pink fluffy number, to display your newfound confidence?
Or maybe a slick neoprene one with a TV character or motif. It’s essential that your friends know you’re a Ravenclaw, is it not?
New classmates, new teachers, new things to learn – going back to school can be daunting.
But with my hair cut and scrubbed, a stiff shirt collar and a row of crisp new highlighters, little Rebecca was always ready to take on the world.
I felt unstoppable. I was ready to learn everything.Â
And you know what? I miss that feeling.
Why did learning stop when school did?
Even as a uni student, where once-revered stationary shopping descended into rooting around in my laptop bag for the one working biro that I’d had for three years, the ebb and flow of semesters meant that my life – and my brain – rebooted every few months.
There was a clear sense of beginnings and endings, marked by exams and hand-ins and modules and classrooms.
Then I graduated.
And somewhere in the monotonous murk of full-time, bill-paying, job-having Adult Life, that sense of timing got lost, taking my love for learning with it.
The result? A teeny bit of a mid-twenties existential crisis, punctuated by the words:Â Now what?
I’m not the only one who feels like this.
There’s a whole sect of Gilmore Girls-watching, Jane Austen-reading, September-loving grown women on social media who are heavy with nostalgia for the simplicity and structure of student days.
There’s even whole fashion and style movements based on this – ‘light academia‘ and ‘dark academia‘ tags are all over Pinterest, harking back to sensible shoes and knee socks, margin notes and messy desks.
It’s all very pretentious in a Dead Poets Society kind of way – but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t all for it.
So I’ve come to a conclusion: Just because we don’t have a school to go back to, it doesn’t mean we can’t have a ‘back to school’ refresh.
Living on your own term-times
Forget waiting until Hogmanay to decide what the year will bring. I’m going to start living on my own terms – or rather, my own term-times.
And September means what, class? “Going back to school,” exactly.
So I’m making a concerted effort to learn new things for a few months – albeit not ones that require a new pencil case to set the tone for the next iteration of my personal journey.
They include, if you were wondering:
- Speaking French – “third time’s the charm,” I say as I cry into my Duolingo screen.
- Playing drums – the nine-year-old that has the slot before me has more rhythm than I’ll ever have. Hand-eye coordination? I’ve never heard of her. But we’ll see how it goes.
- Redecorating – yesterday I phoned my dad to ask what you do with leftover emulsion if you pour too much into the tray. He explained you just put it back in the paint pot. I had not thought of this. (I have two degrees.)
- Making smoothies – turns out frozen fruit is the key, people!
If these things sound small and inconsequential, it’s because they are.
The point isn’t to master them, the way I wanted to pass my exams at school or graduate my course at uni. It’s simply to remind myself that seasons of learning don’t have to stop at the final bell.
You just have to make your own timetable.
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