midlife monday: Student 2.0 or Back To School

studious peace student, originally uploaded by ebbandflo_pomomama.

First time around was easy - only one schedule to juggle, study whenever, stay in the library till closing, catch up on lecture notes at will, and nurse the hangover uninterrupted.
Now, it’s College + 1.
And the Plus One needs feeding, after school care, entertainment and a sensible bedtime.
Welcome to Student 2.0

Student 2.0 feels like it’s on indefinite beta release, ironing out the bugs and the cripplingly slow processor speeds found during QA. Multi-tasking functionality is still in early development as there was no platform to build on in the original stand alone Student 1.0 release. Although Student 2.0 has been 23 years in production (mothballed for almost a decade), the New Student (NS) 1.0 has kept pace with technological advances in education and does not freeze when confronted with the MS Word Ribbon for the first time. NS1.0 can apparently seamlessly integrate coursework into daily life, whereas S2.0 has found lecture notes in the dishwasher or the Plus One unit’s backpack. Note: the Plus One unit is a modified mobile app running a stripped down 1.0 OS.

Student 2.0 is somewhat backward compatible with NS1.0 although communication errors are frequent. For example, 2.0 currently cannot process Pub Night, Evening Networking Event, and Working After Midnight. Student 2.0 also does not do Alcohol 1.0 unless Babysitter 3.0 is installed. Student 2.0 does not understand My Music ... unless it predates the original Apple. A compatibility pack is in production; meanwhile, please use the Humour plug-in downloadable from Microsoft.

Though developed from an older version of 1.0, Student 2.0 will not benefit from the modernised consoles which house NS1.0. Student 2.0 notes with envy that, due to the size of the old style motherboard and installation of the Plus One unit, slimline consoles are not feasible and anyway, they don’t have capacity to house the extra RAM upgrade required. Student 2.0 despairs of ever looking trendy again. S2.0 sadly realises that trendy is not supported in NS1.0 these days. Along with trendy, S2.0 needs to delete Duran Duran, 50210 (the original version), vinyl records, floppy discs, and the tape cassette from its OS. Student 2.0 also realises that the current Bond actor is younger than her.

Although capable of running many of the educational programs required in today’s higher education environment, Student 2.0 will continue to operate … really slowly.