Earlier, while digging through things, I uncovered some of my old academic awards. I've no idea why I've kept these for so long. I just didn't have the heart to throw them out, I guess.
The tassels, medals, and cords are from high school and my AA degree. I didn't want to sit through the long, drawn out ceremonies for my BA and MA/MLS. The University of Iowa has a very large graduating class each year. Sitting through those ceremonies would have been torture. At the time, all I wanted was to get out of Iowa City and relax for a few days.
No, I was never in a sorority. The Greek letters are for Phi Theta Kappa, an international honor society. Nowhere near as exciting as a sorority, I'm sure.
I guess all this means that I'm supposed to be fairly smart. Those cords and medals were all from graduating in the top five to ten percentile of my classes. The thing is, a lot of times I don't feel smart. I know many people make a big deal out of being intelligent, as if it makes them special or something. But, as far as I can tell, it just means you're curious.
To be honest, being the "freaky smart kid" made me stand out in ways that were a little uncomfortable. I already stood out as the "kid with the disabled sister." In my mind I wasn't unusual, I was just me. I figured all us kids were of similar intelligence and I couldn't figure out why they behaved differently than I did. Even when I was told that I was "gifted" it didn't translate in my mind as "I'm a special and deserve lots of praise and attention." All I knew was that I enjoyed learning.
I'm still curious and enjoy learning, though now I need to actively find things to learn about. Like guitar. I'm curious about learning how to play guitar. It's something new that I haven't done before. Or solving a Rubix cube. I've never even played with one of those. Or continuing my art education. Or learning new words. I don't retain as fast as I used to - I need a bit more prompting before stuff sticks - but if I'm not learning something I become bored. Which, is frustrating. It's like I need constant stimulation, otherwise I get tired and sad. Ugh!
Luckily, there are lots of interesting things in the closet to poke through. Though maybe some lunch first. Once I bury myself in there I'm not going to want to come out until I'm finished. Which, may be a while. The downside of curiosity is I tend to get distracted easily. I swear, I'm like a ferret with car keys sometimes.
"The intellect is a very nice whirligig toy, but how people take it seriously is more than I can understand."
-- Ezra Pound
3 comments:
Awww... You're so cute when you're being humble. ;-) :-) :-)
I knew you were smart all along; this just supports my opinion. :-)
I can relate to not wanting to sit through the ceremonies. We were warned we wouldn't get diplomas if we didn't show up. Which implies, to me, that lots of folks (ME!) didn't want to go. At tech. school I had a paperback book hidden up the sleeve of my gown. Teacher saw it and laughed.
Seems there is an inverse rule to these things. Granted having ahuge number of students automatically means it will take a long time for everyone to cross the stage. seen small graduating classes take long time
The crazy thing is, the library program only had two other people graduating at the same time I was. There were only fifteen in the program at the time. But, we were lumped in with the liberal arts programs. None of us wanted to sit through that. :D
The MLS/SLIS program was kind of seen as a joke by some of the faculty. Mainly because we were so small and didn't have any rich alumni donating money back to the school. Unfortunately librarians rarely go on to high paying jobs. Specially not in this economy. :P
Post a Comment