Zoom

There are so many wonderful things to discover once you retire.  One of them goes by the name OLLI.  This stands for Osher Lifelong Learning Institute.

A friend of mine who retired ahead of me told me about it and I was immediately interested.

The idea behind OLLI is that for a fee, seniors can have access to college level courses taught by retired college professors.  That’s what you call a win-win-win.  The university benefits, the retired professors benefit, and you benefit.

Classes are held in person and online.

My first foray was online and through the OLLI program at Temple University.

There were an array of interesting courses from which to choose.  It was so exciting! If I recall correctly, once you pay the flat fee, you can take as many courses as you like.

I decided to start with 3 courses.  The three I chose were Buddhist Philosophy, Creative Writing (no surprise there, right?!), and Yoga.

As this was my first time at OLLI, I signed up for the online intro session that would walk us through how the program works, what to expect, etc.

I knew I was immediately in trouble when I saw just how old everyone was.  At 60, I was the spring chicken.

The intro was basically about how to use Zoom.

Imagine a zoom call with a bunch of 70 to 80 year olds, being led by someone not much younger.

Instructor:  Hi everyone! Do we have everyone? Do you want to turn on your camera so we can see you?  I don’t see everyone. Oh wait, everyone please put your microphones on mute, we’re getting a lot of noise.

Attendee: How do we do that?

Instructor:  Ok, see that microphone icon in the lower left corner of your screen?

Attendee: What’s an icon?

Instructor: Ok, see that picture of a microphone in the lower left corner of your screen?

I won’t torture you further with the frustrating detail of explaining to people about how to use Zoom, who thought a zoom was something that puppies did when they needed to burn off energy.

I quickly exited that meeting. 

My first class however was a bit of more of the same.

The professor for the Creative Writing class was quite good at teaching creative writing, but not at all good with using Zoom.  If I had to guess her age, I’d say it was 82.

She started talking but she was muted.

Me:  Professor, you are muted.

Professor looks at me quizzically.

Me:  You need to unmute yourself.

Professor looks at me quizzically.

Me:  See that microphone icon in the lower left corner?

Professor looks at me quizzically.

Me: See that picture of a microphone in the lower left corner?

I did enjoy the OLLI program and while I haven’t yet signed up for any more courses, I do plan to do so.  Although, I might look into the in-person classes instead.