To give a quick review, I enrolled in a two-year associate degree program a year ago. It is a specialized school for learning a very complex language and the specific means of interpreting it (related entries are categorized under Skool Daze). After learning the mechanics of the language, we work at becoming more proficient in its implementation and our progress is charted alphabetically – meaning we begin in Room D and move up to Room A by the end of the second year. Yeah, I don’t think so.
I’ve just begun my second year and I’m still in D. I began lamenting about this back in Get Out of the Room last semester. At this point I know the language as well or better than most of the students in the building but I can’t seem to pass the proficiency speed tests as quickly as everyone else. Sometimes I tell myself it’s because I’m in my fifties and they’re not, but whatever the reason, for the past three semesters I have observed the D students move up to C on schedule and new students arrive to surround me. They are looking more and more like children. Soon they will be the children of the people I started with.
Like most things in life, it’s a mind game. If you want something badly enough, you find ways to keep yourself pumped. At school we talk among ourselves about how we do this. We practice our skills. Some of us meditate. We drill each other at lunchtime. We share practice tips and study secrets. We picture ourselves in our interesting, lucrative new careers in the near future. As we approach the mid-point in the current semester, we review our individual goals which must be achieved in the next week or we will stay in the same room another session. For me that would be D. D. D. D. D.
Husband gives me hugs and encouragement. We go to dinner when I pass a big test and I drink more than one glass of wine. He orders something big and chocolate from the dessert menu and we share it. I’ve been needing more wine and chocolate lately and that tells me my mental attitude is off. There are other signs. At school I always enjoy my fellow students and celebrate their achievements along with my own. When I pass groups of them in the hallway chatting I would always think ‘cute’, and walk around them. Now I think ‘cattle’ and want them out of my way. But it’s not them. It’s me. I need to get out of my way.
I have one more week to score but first there is tomorrow’s Super Bowl. Last year, MVP Peyton Manning led the Colts to a victory over the Bears. This year, New York is looking to his brother, Eli, to keep the fever as high as it was in the overtime Freeze Bowl Playoff and level the Patriots on Sunday. I remember the first college game I ever watched, which was the first college football game ever nationally televised. Archie Manning threw three touchdown passes for Ole Miss and rushed for over a hundred yards to a 33-32 loss to Alabama in the final seconds. I recall my father and I being too excited to sit by the end of the game. Tomorrow, Archie gets to look out onto another field from another booth and will see a job well done no matter what the outcome. As a parent, I know the feeling. Nice going, Archie.
Winter in New York is the subject of Daughter’s Featured Fotos
bogart street icicles
street scene
what a strange way to write two hundred twenty two. that’s the upper east side for ya
late night shift