On the other hand, as I stepped through the door to gaze at my peers for the first time I was "psyched" to see that everyone in the room appeared to be a mature student. My recently-ex colleagues joked that I would be called "Grandma Gaudun" due to my mature status. Actually, I think I was one of the younger ones there. Hallelujah.

The day provided us with early access to our laptops, which again, to my delight, were totally "suped up" with software, including Microsoft Office and Photoshop Elements. The ever-handy Matthew Little gave us the scoop on student software pricing – music to a software-junky’s ears.

Overall, the first day of school was "aiight".

Adjustment 1: Eating, or lack thereof. My nickname at one company was "Snacker" because I was always, well, snacking. Since I’ve been bad at packing lunches, I’m practically starving right now. It’s largely my own fault. I’m trying to save money so I’m not buying anything other than one extra large Tim Horton’s per day. The upside, I discovered a microwave, which means I can mix up the sandwich diet with my beloved TV dinners.

Adjustment 2: New technology - While I'm a self-proclaimed techie, at least in the world of marketing and communications, all of the software we are using is new to me. Even the email system is something that only vaguely resembles Outlook.

Adjustment 3 - School hours – While the days are technically shorter than a typical work day, don’t expect to end on time: lots of discussion the first week.

Adjustment 4 - New friends. I’ve naturally gravitated to the mature students, especially the ones with kids, so we all can complain together about how hard it is to do both. But in general, most people are out of their element and very friendly and welcoming. I’m practicing using first names as much as possible so I can stop starting conversations with, "I’m sorry, I’ve forgot your name already". And, unlike Tech TEC day, there is a much higher percentage of new grads. I tried to slip "that’s sick" and "totally bucc" into a couple of conversations just to fit it. We’ll see how that pans out for me.