Back to School

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I have always been glad to point out to people (OK, mostly to plebotomists taking blood or nurses putting in an IV) that having good veins

 is one of my talents.  My other talent is 

school.  I don't usually tell them that.  

Somehow, it doesn't seem relevant.  

Tonight, however, it is not only relevant, but totally ideal to think about.  Summer session at Palm Beach State begins next week.  I am signed up for two classes.  One is an Environmental Issues class in the Horticulture department.  My guess is that the bulk of the material will deal with environmental issues effecting how land is planted, watered, landscaped, arranged, preserved . . . or something like that.  

It is required for the Landscape Architect certification program.  I am also taking an Internship/Work Experience class in the Horticultural program.  Both are taught by Dr. George Rogers.  He is the kind of teacher that could make a crumpled paper cup into an interesting subject.  He approaches very difficult, compact material and opens it up so that you feel like you are discovering the subject all by yourself . . . with him standing off to one side, cheering you on. More 

concerned that students adsorb the material, his disarming (kind of off-kilter) jokes and nick-names for flower and their characteristics combine to make it possible to learn and then USE that information; making sense of the world.

I am excited about the coming chance to re-enter the sweet, swirling vortex of organized learning.  

In "You Have Mail," the main character talks about a bouquet of 

sharpened pencils--and I love the thought of that image.  Though it has little to do with the tools that I use to learn--computers, bytes, binomial systems, tables and lists found on-line and then memorized.  

Still . . . the piquant moment when freshly-sharpened graphite and wood pencil meet clean, white paper on a flat wooden desk top . . delicious.