Te Hokinga Mai – The Return

An account of a mature student returning to study after 30 years in the work force

Marek Pipi

If you had said to me in 1996, when I graduated with a B.A., that one day I would return to Vic for postgraduate study, I would have told you where to go. As much as I loved my time here, I was on a mission: get my teaching diploma and become a mover and shaker in the classrooms of Aotearoa, New Zealand.

Now, at fifty, I find myself once again walking past the Hunter Building each morning, making my way to a lecture. What bought about my change in attitude—or rather, who—was my grandmother. At ninety, she began asking me to return to university. A great educator herself (and a Dame), she told me she had the perfect thesis waiting, along with all the material I would need, sitting neatly in her home office. 

I was too respectful to tell her where to go, but managed to change the subject every time the topic arose. Why on earth would I forgo a stable salary to become a poor student again? No thank you.

Last year, at ninety-five, she passed away. I was overcome by a deep sense of regret. Why on earth had I not fulfilled her wish when she asked?

I returned to school and informed the principal that I would be going back to university. I was coming back to study, by hook or by crook. At the end of the year I resigned officially and spent Christmas packing boxes and moving furniture into storage. Then my pay stopped. I had a mild panic attack. 

At the same time, I was trying to navigate a new way of applying for courses, loans, and allowances. In the nineties this was all done on paper—forms, envelopes stamped. No log-ins, no passwords, no mysterious links. They say the digital age is supposed to make things easier, not harder. I still prefer paper.

I arrived from Hawke’s Bay and set off to the train station for my first day back as a university student. Until recently I had been the Year 9 Dean at school. This, I realised, must be what my girls felt like on their first day. Then there was public transport. I needed lessons again. We used to buy ten-trip tickets that the conductor or bus driver would punch in with a little click.. Someone showed me how to buy a Snapper card, download the app, and load money onto it. Thankfully the automated message on the train reminds us that “if you are using a Snapper card, please remember to tap off.”

Wellington has changed, so has Vic. The city is slower, quieter.The walk up Lambton Quay no longer feels  so rushed. On Fridays, it almost feels like a Sunday, with so many people working from home. 

At Vic in the nineties, there was no Hub, no docking stations, no monitors or vending machines on every floor. Only one place sold coffee, in the courtyard outside the library, and I recall there only being only two eateries on campus. Our readings came in a heavy booklet of photocopied chapters called a multilith. Te Kawa a Māui, Māori Studies was a group of quaint villas in front of the Marae, where today stands the three-level, modern, art filled building known as Ngā Mokopuna.

One of the most obvious and beautiful changes I have noticed in my first weeks back is how safe and natural it is to be part of the rainbow community on campus. The self-expression and freedom to openly be yourself, without judgment, shows me how far we have come as a society.

When I was here for the first time, I used to mince around these hallways in sarongs, wraparound skirts, and all sorts of eye-catching get-ups. But that came from personal confidence,  not because I was seeing others like myself. In my day, no one had sent out the memo that it was okay.

In other ways Wellington has not changed at all. My favourite clothes store, World, is still open.So is Logan Brown. Slow Boat Records—an inner-city institution—still spins jazz records as you walk through the door. The colored buckets still tip water noisily along Cuba Street. Buskers still sing at the train station and on street corners. And the weather—this weather—will never change.

As I sit on the sixth floor of the library looking out to the harbour, there is a calm within. Who cares if I dropped from a $3,000-a-fortnight salary to $300 a week (that I have to pay back)? Who cares if I have my first assignment due next week and haven't started yet? Who cares if I’m surrounded by students who are the age of the Year 13s I was teaching just months ago? 

All is well. 

I am supposed to be here. 

My course-related costs and living allowance appeared in my account today. Once I submit this annotated bibliography I’m going to head down to the Puffin Wine Bar and buy myself the most expensive cocktail they have. I’ll raise the glass and toast my grandmother.

Look Nan. I’m finally doing it.