I left high school at 13 but went on to get four degrees

Being a mature aged student made me a student for all the right reasons.

At 25 I was accepted into Sydney University. Being a mature aged student isn’t easy. I had to work weekends and nights to make a living. Source: Supplied

I never planned to go to university. I dropped out of school in year 8. In Lebanon truancy isn’t monitored. In Australia it is of course against the law. Many kids leave before completing primary school due to poverty. They end up working as trade apprentices or pumping gas at a petrol station. Other kids just beg on the streets or sell chewing gum.

There was a familial expectation that I would continue my schooling. I was the first in my class for a number of years. I did so well that on two occasions I wasn’t required to sit the final year exams. There were only a handful of students in the whole school who had their exams waived.

The truth is I just memorised everything. I could write down the difference between mitosis and meiosis but I wasn’t able to think critically about them. Everyday after school I sat in my room and memorised pages upon pages without understanding their contents. The quicker I could finish the quicker I could play Mortal Kombat and watch TV.

But at 13 I lost the enthusiasm for study. I couldn’t tell you why but in retrospect the bullying was a part of it. I was an awkward kid it seems and I spent a lot of time alone. It wasn’t easy for me to make friends. My mother got so worried about me that she started to ask my cousin to take me with him when he went out. We mostly went to card houses and coffee shops that sold argyle pipes and viscid Arabic coffee. We would play a card game called lykha or mankala. Sometimes we would just hang out on the street with a guy called Samir who loved to show off his beefy gym toned biceps.

Everyday after school I sat in my room and memorised pages upon pages without understanding their contents. The quicker I could finish the quicker I could play Mortal Kombat and watch TV

My father sent me to work on a construction site which was owned by my uncle in Jabel Mohsen, a small village in Tripoli. Initially I was just moving piles of stone and wood. In a few months I was apprenticed to a painter. The assumption was that I would take this expertise to Australia.

My uncle told me that painters make “good money” in Australia and that in a few years I would be a muallem, an expert. I guess he knew that one day I would choose to return to live in Australia. The Lebanese economy was unstable and the possibility of war erupting was real. Yet there was no immediate plan to return. 

It was tough work. Some days all I did was sand apartment walls with a rock so that the coat of paint would be smooth. I looked forward to the peripatetic coffee salesman with his shiny coffee ibrik strapped to his back. Every day at 10 am I would buy two cups of coffee for 500 Lebanese Liras, light up a Viceroy cigarette and look upon the Imam Ali Mosque. At about noon the adhan would start and I would know it was time for lunch.

Source: Supplied

I didn’t last very long in this job. I wasn’t cut out to be a painter. When I returned home one afternoon, I asked my father if I could return to Australia and finish my schooling. Even though I was born and lived in Sydney till the age of eight, returning as a 16-year-old was like coming to Australia anew. I wouldn’t know how to get around and my English was basic.

My father and I stopped in Cairo on our flight to Sydney. This was back when airplanes had smoking sections. The smokers sat at the back of the plane and you could see clouds of smoke being vertically vacuumed through air vents above the seats.

I remember the drive from Kingsford Smith -- the lack of rubbish on the streets, the smooth roads, and the traffic lights. There was order here unlike Lebanon which thrived on chaos.

We lived in Kings Cross next to the El Alamein Fountain off Darlinghurst Road. The Fountain was designed to look like dandelions in terraced pools of water. It was commissioned to commemorate those who fought in Egypt during World War II. I never got to enrol in school when I returned. I didn’t even know where and how I would apply. Instead I worked at my uncle’s café—The Fountain Café—which sat at the intersection of Macleay Street and Darlinghurst Road. You could hear the sound of the fountain from the café’s outside seating. It was a soothing counterpoint to the surrounding cacophony. I worked seven nights a week with a bunch of European backpackers—Dutch, German, Norwegian and English. Sometimes we would go out after our shift to clubs and bars on Bayswater road or a speakeasy on Roslyn street where shadows would ask “smoko bro?”.  

For many years I worked in and out of different bars and cafés in the Cross. I witnessed drug violence and junkies stealing everything from cutlery to clothes. I had a gun pointed at me during a robbery of the hotel’s gaming lounge where I worked. My co-worker Stuart, who worked the pokies, was hit over the head with the gun and forced to open the safe. It all happened in less than a minute. I still remember the adrenaline racing through my body and the look on Stuart’s pale face.

It wasn’t before long that I found I myself exposed to the drug scene. It was difficult to avoid it back then. I was offered everything from cocaine to Ketamine, hydro marijuana, amphetamines, and even ice. I never injected anything though. I was perhaps too disturbed by the images of passed out junkies on Kellet Street.

I decided to leave this scene at 24 and began a university preparation course through TAFE.

At 25 I was accepted into Sydney University. Being a mature aged student isn’t easy. I had to work weekends and nights to make a living. I was a decent Barista for some years. I even made a coffee for Hugo Weaving (a macchiato in case you’re wondering) and Rose Byrne (soy latte). I worked at events such as Calvin Klein fashion shows, book awards, and video game launches.

In my first year I studied science and education. I wanted to be a maths teacher. I took subjects like Linear Algebra, Differential Calculus and Graph Theory. I learnt about Euler’s formula, the Hungarian Algorithm and the Pigeon Hole Principle. I learnt about the history of schools and Maslow’s hierarchy.  

Yet I really wanted to tell stories. I wanted to create. I liked the idea of stringing together narratives, putting words to character and getting lost in my own fictions.

I left education and transferred to a BA the following year, this time focusing on English literature. I was the only Arab male in my English classes. Most of the students were white. All my teachers were white. The students looked like they were fresh out of high school. They had a certain sense of entitlement written on their faces, as if university was a given rather than a privilege.

I left education and transferred to a BA the following year, this time focusing on English literature. I was the only Arab male in my English classes

Before going to university, I had read writers like Noam Chomsky, John Pilger and Edward Said. I even read the autobiography of Malcolm X.  Such writers coloured my politics and made me socially conscious. I was wary of the “orientalist”, the white “devil” and US hegemony. My anti-establishment viewpoint didn’t sit well with conservative teachers and private school trust fund babies.

In my second year I picked up another major in philosophy. I liked ideas and so the choice was fitting. I sat through lectures on German philosophers such as Kant, Hegel and Schelling. I discussed emotion versus experience, utilitarianism and reason. I reflected on anarchist views of power, nihilism, and capitalism. I debated democracy in political philosophy and read poetry about Arabs being killed on screens.

Outside of class I got involved in societies. I joined the writer’s society and went to poetry nights at Sappho’s in Glebe. I went to Hermann’s Bar on Thursday nights with fellow philosophers and discussed topics like social media, sex and celebrity. I even wrote some articles for student publications. I started to enjoy university life and the varied conversations I would have both in and out of class. I would get invited to all sorts of events from wine trips to movie screenings. University gave me a unique social life, something that was completely new to me.

I got involved in politics and helped candidates campaign for the campus union and senate. I joined the Labour club and the Greens and advocated left leaning politics. In truth I was more radical, but the so-called radical groups on campus acted a bit like a cult. Most of the members would ask me the same question “do you believe in revolution?”.

An interest in social justice naturally led to studying law which I undertook at UTS. I lived on campus in Ultimo for four years right next to the ABC. Studying law was challenging and the readings were as one lecturer put it “boring as bat shit”. But I loved the intellectual rigour.

Just like Sydney University, UTS opened up a lot of opportunities. I collected some great memories along the way. I got involved in mentoring, tutoring, and leadership programs. I met people from all over the world who shared their experiences with me and who would ask me about Australian culture. I would attend weekend outings, parties, pub crawls, and food festivals. Some of us would hang out in student rooms and sing songs along to a guitar. Or we would just lounge around on the housing rooftop and take in the city skyline.

In 2017 I left university with two undergraduate degrees in arts and law and two postgraduate degrees in intellectual property and applied linguistics. I stayed at university for a total of nine years all up. It was an amazing and taxing nine years. In retrospect being a mature aged student made me a student for all the right reasons.

Daniel Sleiman is a freelance writer, journalist and producer. He is currently working on his first novel. You can follow him on Instagram @danny.sleiman.