Thoughts About Learning

Well, I have been trying unsuccessfully to post on my blog for a week or so now. Something always gets in the way. Last time it was the computer itself. But that is beside the point.

Connor and I had our first day of classes yesterday. He is taking three dual credit courses this semester and I'm just taking two regular courses. Part of me would like to be doing a lot more, but this is how it works this semester, and in the end, I'm happy with it. I get to supervise Ethan's schoolwork and plan Mattie's English and Spanish work for the year, and I love doing that. It might not count as college credit, but I enjoy the experience.

So, the classes. I went into this with a biased view of Kilgore College. Most of what I'd heard about the school was negative. That, coupled with my propensity for expecting the worse, set me up for a very pleasant surprise. The buildings were good, the people were really helpful, and the teachers actually acted like they wanted to help us succeed. I was stunned. First impressions may lie, but basing your impressions off the impressions of other people isn't the way to go either.

Of course I'd love to be at a four year university right now, but that's not what I'm doing. So I figured I may as well swallow my pride and appreciate what I get. There are a lot of things I'm going to like about Kilgore. I love to learn, and I've always tried, (maybe not always striven,) for excellence. I'm not going to Kilgore so that I can shirk. But, it did occur to me yesterday that perhaps a bonus to attending Kilgore instead of a more challenging school would be that I can relax and enjoy learning instead of continually scrambling to make top grades with a really high standard. Enjoying what I learn is more important to me than earning the highest grades, and I think it's the key to retaining information anyway.

Our history teacher emphasized that she believes in redemption, and as I understand it, giving us room to fall and pick ourselves back up again. As a person who wants to try hard anyway, I appreciate that. I have spent way too much time kicking myself over mistakes, and it helps not to have someone else kicking you too.

I've been reading a book on probiotics (almost the opposite of antibiotics, but not quite!) that I got from the library. I love it. I love learning about my guts. I love learning about other peoples' guts. And all the little bugs. I lovingly refer to them as my "internal garden" and have had a great interest in promoting the health of my microflora lately, mostly with yogurt. I found a recipe on line for making it (very inexpensively) in the crock pot. It's delicious. It's almost scary how important the balance of bacteria in our gut is to the health of our whole bodies.

Anyway, all that is just to say that I've been learning far more about biology from that book than I ever did from my high school science curriculum, and with 100% more enthusiasm! I was never interested in biology in school, but now I'm almost looking forward to the college class. Massage therapy is next on the list.

Well, at this point, my only issue with college, besides the fact that it costs both arms and both legs, is that I need to pick only one or two majors...because suddenly, the whole world looks like a new and fascinating place, full of so many things to learn.