Back To School

My pounds lost: 7.6
Dallas pounds lost: 9.6

I've been giving serious thought to taking a few classes. I'm not sure why. I don't need any more education for my job. In fact, I probably could start a consulting business teaching entrepreneurs about the pitfalls of sourcing product from China. God knows, I've been baptized by fire in that arena. But the desire isn't about my job. I love learning. Anything.

When I was in university, my goal was to SURVIVE the experience. I certainly enjoyed the social scene but I never appreciated the education itself. I worked nearly 40 hours a week and maintained a full course load so life at the time was busy and monstrously stressful. I had always been one of the smartest kids in the class. I definitely studied but school was easy for me and didn't require much effort. University was completely different animal, though.

During my third year, I took a postmodern fiction class. After reading Thomas Pynchon's, The Crying of Lot 49 and comprehending perhaps 30% of it, I sat in class and listened while a group of students discussed it in great, enthusiastic detail.

I could not follow their conversation.

I was used to being confused by calculus or struggling to get my brain around quantum physics but this was a literature class! English was my thing or so I thought. For the first time academically, I felt like a complete poser. I realize now, from the perspective of a middle aged woman, that the world is teeming with people who are much smarter than me and that this is a good thing but at the time, I was defeated. My confidence was shattered. My professor wrote, "Did you even read the book?" on my dissertation. I never went back to the class. I regret that.

For me, university was all about career choice. I thought I might like to teach. Sure, having summers off was a pleasant perk but the reality of dealing with other people's children ten months of the year made my hair stand on end. I briefly flirted with the idea of law school and scored in the top 3% when I wrote my LSATs but did not pursue it after learning the kind of hours that new lawyers were expected to work. Medical school? I nixed that once I understood that it would mean eight years of post graduate study and lots and lots of math. My God, I was lazy. The only thing that truly rang my bell was getting out of school and earning some of the green stuff.

Today, my interest have changed. If I had it to do all over again, I would have gone to medical school or applied to the Culinary Institute of America or studied photography. I guess this is why I'd like to go back to school. It would be interesting to enroll in a biology course just to see if I would enjoy it now that I don't need to take it.

I was told once that the key to happiness was to be gainfully employed doing something that you love and I agree that job satisfaction is enormously impactful considering we spend so much time at work. However, I also believe that joy comes from being passionate about something, anything, and devoting part of one's day to its pursuit.

It's not likely that I'll pick up Thomas Pynchon's book anytime soon but I can see myself learning to make demi-glace. If you had to do it all over again, would you do anything differently?