Zen Pencils by Gavin Aung Than for May 29, 2023

Just another poor little robot…………..

Just don’t put the “suck” in success and you should be okay

And where are we, ten years on?

https://www.utne.com/community/erica-goldson-comic-zm0z13ndzlin/

Oh, wow. She described me in high school. I got a life in college.

Weird

Lived it, regret it.

Big topic. Fear of the unknown. Printing press, telephone, radio, TV, Internet… Things got better, good things went away, new bad things.. faster everything. We are our own biggest threat. Gavin is our flashlight in the darkness. Nice job.

Well done, with nice imag-ination.

I started at U of Illinois as an engineering undergrad. Within a year I learned that I did not want to be an engineer. U of I asked me to leave. From there I went to Chicago City College and studied Philosophy and Political Science. That is where I learned the difference between Training and Education. Education is better.

Studying hard, doing extra credit, etc., was my way out of an extremely dysfunctional family situation. University on the other side of the continent and med school in Edinburgh and other such stuff were great improvements and a way to know myself and finally enjoy life. Thanks Gav.

My class valedictorian was a nice girl with a photographic memory. She could tell you any quotation out of any of our textbooks – including page number and physical location on the page. Made her an excellent test taker.

I got to partner with her in physics class. Hoped she would be able to explain things (the teacher couldn’t – he also only quoted lines from the textbook). Then realized that she did not understand the meaning of the things she could quote.

Met her again at my five year reunion. She had graduated at the top of her college class. She was going to be a CPA.

Met her again at my ten year reunion. She was in tears. She had failed her CPA licensing exam three times. Had never gotten less than an “A” before, let alone failed. Her job was in jeopardy due to not getting the license. Her problem was those tests required more than regurgitation – they were practical examinations. She could not apply the facts that she’d memorized.

Don’t know what happened next, since I’ve never gone to any more reunions. I suspect she stopped trying to be a CPA. I truly hope she’s happy now.

Turn the frontal lobe off every so often, and let the right and left lobes sing a duet.

That’s why God invented grad school.

I went back to school to earn a second doctorate, because I wanted to use that degree program to shape who I was going to become in the third stage of my professional life. I graduated at 55 and a few years later launched a consulting practice based largely on the research I’d done. It wasn’t the only way, but it was my way. I’ve never had a use for the second doctorate—from the University of Leicester—but I’ll always cherish the experience and the outcomes.

Scared and hopefully not sinking in school debt.