A Post about this Blog About Aging

(read: why am I doing this?) 

So here’s what this blog’s all about:

I’m taking a class at Brandeis University called Aging in a Cross-Cultural Perspective, taught by Professor Sarah Lamb, and in tandem with this class I’m taking a half-credit, “experiential learning” course about aging. For this in tandem, real-world experiential course, I’ve spent the past 8 weeks doing a program called “Sages and Seekers,” for which I was paired up with someone over the age of 65 to meet and talk with every Wednesday. The course started out with a “speed-dating” session in which all 12 of us student “seekers” (seekers of wisdom, that is) got to talk with each older “sage” for five minutes. Then, we met every week for an hour and a half; the first 10 minutes we would talk with someone who was not our partner, and we spent the rest of the time with our assigned sage. Today was the penultimate session during which each seeker delivered a 5-minute “tribute” to his or her sage in front of everyone, talking about what they learned from all their one-on-one sessions with their sage. Next week will be our last session during which we’ll all have a group discussion about how the class went.

But… my blog actually isn’t about Sages and Seekers. My blog is part of my final project for this experiential learning course, in which we need to be engaging with aging (eng-aging!) in the real world, so I’ll be posting all sorts of (hopefully) fun, interesting things about aging.

Here are possible topics I’d like to post about:
– Certain topics we’ve discussed in my class (like how Americans value independence in old age far more than many other cultures in which multi-generational households are the norm, or how the experience of aging differs for men and for women– ever heard of andropause?, etc.)
– Aging in popular media (I’m thinking about a particular episode of the TV comedy series Parks and Rec here, in which a small local government official decides to have sex education classes for seniors)
– How college-aged students view aging
– Some volunteer work I’ve done at different living facilities for the elderly
– And more!

So before I conclude this introductory post, I’ll leave you with a couple things to ponder:

1) How much have you thought about your post-65 years? (I for one, have not put much thought into this. In fact, I’ve realized through this class that my most long-term goals I’ve made only reach about as far as raising my kids successfully and sending them off to college– but what about after that?)

2) What images, questions, and thoughts come to mind when you think about “getting old?”

And 3) When was the last time “aging” came up in everyday conversation for you? (For me, not counting conversations concerning this class, it was about a week ago when I went to play Bingo with a friend and she commented, “We’re going to make really good old ladies!”)

So, hopefully that gives you some things to think about. Thank you for reading! Hopefully this will turn out better than my study abroad blog (I think I wrote about 4 posts total for that…), but I think the whole this-being-for-a-grade thing will help with that. Until next time!