Five classes didn't seem that much when I signed up but now I know. I could have done better if I had just one less class. I am in no rush to get out of school or go anywhere, so taking less of a class load next time is no big deal.
I am, however, so completely exhausted I have no artistic expression to add to this post. I also study so much recently I have no opinions about what is going on in the news because I do not know what is going on. It is a sad and scary day when Kevin Day has no opinions about anything. My entire focus is pulling off these last few weeks with grace and a degree of success (meaning I hope I make all A's).
I just finished 12 hours of algebra study. I always save my journaling for last because I enjoy it the most. Journaling allows me to end my study day on a high note.
1. Write about something you have learned simply because you loved learning it.
The first thing that comes to mind was the overwhelming passion I had for ice skating for twenty plus years. I could not absorb learning to skate fast enough. Jumps, spins, the feel of cold air rushing by you as your heart was pounding. It was an immediate love for me. I would skate for yours until I could not get out of bed the next day I was so sore. I would push myself until I could not walk to the car. Once, dad had to take me to the emergency room where I was admitted and stayed for five days because I was so exhausted and dehydrated. That is passion, my definition anyway.
The most helpful thing that helped me learn this sport? I'm not sure, it was a combination of things. Surely the repetition, having a personal coach to work on technique. You know, as I write this I think the most helpful thing for me was my intense, almost insane desire, to excel at this sport. Nothing and no one was going to keep me off the ice. Yes, the most helpful thing was my desire.
Additional activities (or approaches as the text book calls it) would have been the television and VCR. I would watch everything on skating, tape it all, and watch the skaters execute the jumps in slow motion, frame by frame. Even the falls, I would want to know why they fell. I started to recognize when someone would drop a shoulder in the air while rotating and predict a fall before it happened. I would compare what I saw to how I felt when I was in the air rotating. Visualization on the television and in my minds eye played a big part.
I was at my "home rink" or some rink everyday. It was my life, everything I did revolved around skating in some way or another. It is safe to say I engaged in this activity daily for a minimum of 2 hours. Some weeks Dad would force me to stay home to rest (my body did need it), but I could easily spend 6 to 8 hours a day skating.
My experiences while engaged in this activity were for the most part euphoric. Like anything, there was frustration, the feeling that you had peeked out (could not progress anymore), or were told negative things that would discourage some - but my bounce back time was usually 5 minutes or less! HA!
The rewards from this were to many to list. In a nutshell, I was paid handsomely to travel the world for free, see beautiful places, stay in beautiful hotels, meet and experience friendships that have lasted my lifetime and inspire others. I hear from men and women now who say they started skating because of seeing me skate, or kids (now adults) that I used to teach who have kids of their own that say they wish I would coach their kids. I had no idea, I would have never dreamed, that my pre-teen obsession would set off such a chain of events.
2. Write about a course you are now taking from the point of view of an active learner.
We all go through the chore of cooking because we want to eat. We bathe, groom ourselves and fix our hair just so because we want to be attractive, we flirt because we want to be loved. Nothing could stop us from having the desire to be loved or to be feed - and that is how bad you have to desire learning.
I am grateful for this opportunity to share with you exactly what I did that helped me be such a successful learner when I took this class, but one thing needs to be perfectly clear, before you can say you learned anything. Before you can say you took from what this class offered and more, you have to want it, and you have to want it bad. There are some classes that are disciplines, you may not have a great passion for but realize in the big picture it must be done. Even in these classes you need to want to attend and excel, even in these not so enjoyable classes you MUST challenge yourself to be the best student in the class when you feel your worse.
It is obvious who wants to be here and who does not. The people who do not want to be here think they are cleaver and that they are fooling others. These people are not only fooling no one, they are wasting their lives. If this is not what you want to do, if this is not what you desire, GO DO WHAT YOU WANT TO DO. Do yourself a favor, create your own life, I hope for you it is full of joy, laughter and love. But don't waste your time doing something you do not desire.
I desired to come back to school as an adult. I left a loft in Victory Plaza that had a downtown view and sold my Nissan Xterra to buy a bike and DART pass. I was, and still am, willing to do whatever it takes to experience getting a higher education and see what new passions and doors it opens for me.
Love and respect yourself, follow your desires, not the desires that someone else has for you. It is when you follow you own desires that you will truly learn to live out loud.
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