Did I ever tell you I cried on my first day of Critical Thinking class a couple of weeks ago? Sean actually met me at school after class to try and get me an actual parking spot rather than the perilous place my car was parked on the driveway to the school in desperation after driving up and down the aisles for a over a half hour...but that's not why I cried.
I cried, like full on freaked-out after walking out of this Philosophy class convinced that I could never be smart enough to be successful in it. Just the topics that were randomly brought up while going through the syllabus blew my mind. Basically I needed to be prepared to logically defend every belief I have...and it turns out I don't think that much about all this stuff. Yes, I've taken classes and mastered the materials, but I haven't had the feeling of pushing my mind to it's limits...we'll maybe that statistics class a few years ago.
So I'm intimidated and overwhelmed, but the strangest thing is I want to do it. That's not like me when presented with a challenge...especially a school challenge...I spent 15+ years working so hard not to learn or succeed that I'm still so struck by the fact that I want to now...and that I actually can when I try.
These four classes are a ton of information coming at me on a weekly basis...information my brain is responsible for...information that I enjoy taking in...I can literally feel it when I walk out of class and my head has learned something new. Like the various 2-D mediums of art or the cycle of the moon, or that a democracy doesn't do well when it needs to fight a drawn out war without a clear objective.
When I got home from that first day of class I threw some paint on a little notebook and I made yet another tree (since I'm obsessed with making them) so I had someplace to record all the bits and pieces that struck me from my days in class. How cool would it be if I had this for the rest of years at school and I can look back on all the things I learned?
And there hasn't been any crying since that first day...lots of work...and lots more to come...but no tears. :)
