My area of relative academic expertise is psychology. I say “relative” because I haven’t put this expertise to actual use since I graduated from UF. I didn’t go on to earn any advanced degrees, and it seems like it’s been a really, really long freaking time since I graduated.
Living through my own psychological thriller (of sorts) has given me cause to look back on my psych classes and see them for what they were: a collosal waste of money. Notice I didn’t say my “education” was a waste; it was anything but. I learned so much about life, other cultures, and the world in school that its staggering vaule is impossible to calculate.
This morning I wasn’t feeling terribly well so I stayed home. At some point while I was sitting in my family room, my eyes wandered over to one of our many bookselves, and I caught sight of one of my old psychology text books. I thought of my mother, sitting in a hospital that I’ve been afraid to visit (lest my surpressed immune system betray me again), and I got angry.
I scowered the house. I left no shelf undisturbed, no cabinet unopened. I gathered up my books on personality, social psychology, behaviorism, Meyers, Skinner, abnormal pyschology, counseling. I almost tore up my book on the psychology of aging and gerontology. And while I was at it I grabbed my sociology books too. I stacked them all up by our garage door… the one that’s closest to our garbage cans outside… and I gave them a cathartic toss… one at a time. I put them right where they belong: with Adam’s dirty diapers and the rest of yesterday’s trash.
Tomorrow I may wish I hadn’t, but today I feel a little better.
I couldn’t agree more. It’s just hard to remember sometimes.
By the way (note the spaces ;-), that’s a great quote.
I’m really getting the hang of typing with one thumb (on the Wii). Yee haw! The nice thing about typing with your thumb, it’s virtually impossible to think about what you want to say while you type… it takes so freaking long, and requires so much extra concentration. I wish it was a better metaphor for my life right now.
Its better that you recover fully before visiting the hospital. It would be difficult for both you and your mother is a visit resulted in complications for you.
As to the toils of your college years, life always provides the best education under the best and worst of times. College isn’t to provide every answer, only to open your mind to opportunities.
A wise professor opened the semester by informing his class that “There are things we doubt at our own peril.” After several handfulls of years, those words continue to echo in my head.