LOGGING ON TO THE IVY LEAGUE

Well, it's official. I have to give up sleeping. There's just too much out there to learn and I can't stand it. I've always loved to learn, but am terrified of the scholastic environment because I don't test well. I absorb information like a sponge, and seem to have an above average capacity to understand it, but then it just seems to go somewhere, I don't know where. Ask me to regurgitate information, i.e, on an exam, and I panic! Actually, I can do it, I got through college with pretty good grades, but it required lots of memorization, and sheer terror. I guess all the reading and learning I've done over the years is in there somewhere and surfaces in an occasional brilliant idea or solution, but instant recall, which my husband has and for which I am extremely jealous, doesn't exist for me, and it makes me sad because I love learning and I wish I could remember everything I've learned. I guess I just have to keep feeding a craving that is never satiated.

OK, boo hoo, but I discovered something this morning that brought absolute joy to my day. Did you know that you can sit in on the lectures of some of the world's greatest academic professors - entire semesters!!!! No test, no enrollment, no cost. I am so excited about this I'm about to burst. This morning I sat in on Dr. Marion Diamond's Anatomy class (University of California, Berkeley). It was soooooo interesting and her presentation was wonderful - I see why she is such a popular teacher! (Click on the post title above to go to YouTube to see her lectures). I'm also going to tune into MIT Physics Professor, Dr. Walter Lewin's class, "Classical Mechanics," Yale English Professor, Dr. Amy Hungerford's class, "The American Novel Since 1945," and Stanford University's, Dr. Martin Lewis' class, "History: Geography of U.S. Elections." Yippee!!! These are all on YouTube of course.

Tomorrow's post of One Hundred Things My Mother Taught Me A Million Times, Chapter 4, will be "Things lay, people lie," so stay tuned because it could get interesting. That is, assuming I don't stay up all night listening to Dr. Hans Rosling, from the Gapminder Foundation speaking on "Statistics: Debunking Third-World Myths."

Whoo Hoo!!

SueAnn