I feel like I have dropped the ball on you and school. The assignment is to provide a few entries to the blog a week, and it’s been a week and a half since I written anything. Wow, sounds like going to confession….kinda…. forgive me teacher for I have failed to purge… I do feel like blogging is purging though, don’t you? I use this page as my diary, telling you all my educational, and sometimes not to educational, secrets, and sometimes getting yucky stuff off my chest. Well, I’m back! And I promise to share better. Isn’t funny how we place expectations on ourselves and then when we fail at these self imposed expectations, we apologize to someone else? I mean really, the idea behind this blog was to comment on certain topics a couple of times weekly and I decided that, as I feel like a gatherer, I kept all my comments to myself, temporarily, and then wrote once a week, spewing everything at once. And then, when I failed to do so, just once, I feel compelled to apologize to you for it. The only person that my lack of entry will affect is me. Is that my upbringing or my solid Canadianness? Gotta love guilt, no matter how you get it.
So I have this friend, who has been a part of my life since the very early 1980’s and no, you may not ask me how old I really am. Just rest assured I was not a complete adult when we met. She recently moved to another community. Huge step for her, she was raised in Prince Rupert, and we all felt she going to be a lifer. But life has a way of throwing curve balls and she found herself leaving me and her comfort zone in the dust. Don’t worry, all good reasons, and I am super proud of her for making the move. Anyhow, we were chatting on the phone the other night, yes, people still do that, and she asked when I was going to be done school. My response was, ‘well that depends, do you mean the PIDP or school in general?’ There was a small silence and I knew she was trying to figure out how to rephrase the question. Then she said ‘Will you ever be done with school?’ Now that I can answer. Sort of. I said ‘well, I should be done the PIDP by the end of December, and then I start my degree program in January and then I want to relearn the acoustic guitar and then learn the electric….wait…..never.’ ‘What?’ she asked. ‘Never.’ I replied. I am never going to be done school, in one form or another. Why would I? It’s like a hobby to me…something that keeps me busy, keeps me on my cognitive toes. They (still trying to figure out who they is)say that you should keep your mind sharp as you age, sounds kind of like cheese doesn’t it? But really, who says that because you grow and up become something that you have to stop there? What if I want to become a rock star? What if I want to become a doctor? Or a politician, or a rocket scientist? If I quit learning now, my brain might go dormant or forget how to learn, and getting it to restart to learn might be harder than learning the topic I choose. So if I keep learning, the chances of forgetting how to learn go away. And then there is the whole other part about synapses and fancy scientific words like that. I just recently learned (see?) that our brain continues to develop once we become fully formed humans, better known as grownups. We keep forming synapses and creating memories and thoughts and processes, and if a brain stops getting stimulus it stops developing and growing, actually taking away connections and brain power. Sure don’t want that to happen, it sounds unpleasant. But the best excuse for continuing to learn? I like it! It feels good, for a couple of reasons. One, because I know that an idle brain can become an unhealthy brain as we age, not going to let that happen. And two, because I never want to be bored. My husband says if I ever stop going to school I will drive him crazy! Hmm…..maybe I don’t have to quit learning to do that…I’m going to look for the ‘drive your partner crazy’ class online, there has to be one out there. I’ll take that just before I sign up to play the ukulele. Heehee.
Kimberly Williams 