Stories with no point:

[vicarz]

In undergrad, I took a class in motivation. The class was filled with typical college kids, almost to barely 20s. One woman in the class was maybe 40-50 years old. She sat in the back and didn't participate much. Near the end of the term, she piped up with the saddest question I think I've ever heard. I don't remember what we were discussing, be it Maslow's need theory, behaviorism, or what...but she asked a question completely out of context. She said something like
"Suppose you had a young boy, say 14, and were having trouble motivating him. What do you do? I mean we've gone over a lot of theories but none of them give me anything I can do. What if it was your grandson?"
The class was silent, and the professor babbled something about how these were abstract theories not really designed for application to specific situations. He suggested taking what she could from the general lessons and trying to find a way to apply them. She went back and forth with him for a bit, clearly unsatisfied, but let the issue go. I didn't know anyone in the class to talk about it with. It made me sad - I think she had spent all that money, sat there all that time, done all that work...because she wanted to figure out how to help her grandson. She went to a college and took a class, but it wasn't quite the right direction. It made perfect sense when I thought about it, but I wouldn't have expected a class in motivational theories to help me raise a child.

I used to have an aquarium. I bought some fish at the fish factory behind Gaithersburg Square. That place was neat - in the basement, no light but the fluorescent glow that made all the fish super bright. They had salt water fish - the weirdest prettiest kinds. I bought some of my usual - tetras, or neon fish. They always looked good in the store, but not at home because I didn't have the expensive hood. My aquarium used to house my anoles. I bought my fish, took them home, and they died almost instantly. The store had a return policy, to take the fish back with a sample of the water. I did, and the woman tested the water and told me "No fish could live in here." I said well a bunch do, and she was very skeptical. She asked how I maintained the tank, and I said well when it evaporated a few inches or so I poured in more water, after I let the water stand and declorinate. She noted that the fish waste products would not evaporate, and that the more I just added water without taking any out the more concentrated the funk became. My fish had adapted to their living hell. After that I started changing the water more.

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/_blackjack_/]

preached from the podium by some ivory-tower milquetoast idiot savant who has never actually had to field-test his/her knowledge outside the classroom.

Speaking as an aspiring ivory-tower milquetoast idiot savant, there isn't a lot of practical use for the stuff I study in the first place. It's hard to "field test" theories about obscure religious movements that died out in Judea 1900 years ago.

[vicar.livejournal.com]

That's a lesson I learned too late - we just picked the wrong major for the wrong reasons. We should have picked a lucrative career, then worked backwards from there to what degree would make us marketable for it. It's silly to have a worthless degree with no financial application and complain that we should be paid for our lack of foresight.

I'm gettin old.

[vicar.livejournal.com]

I disagree - my grad degrees haven't paid off one iota. I just stuck with my government job for many years. The degrees are not getting me any more money and didn't seem to help when I was looking for a job. I'm afraid they were also a waste of money. The law degree could be worth money, but I'm going to be doing just as well with my ten years in the government.

[vicar.livejournal.com]

What I learned in college was that it didn't matter what you learned - that you had to figure out the system and how to score in it. I tended to look for the highest score with the least amount of effort. I've never been uncomfortable with the fact that I wasn't learning. Later I learned I was learining - and demonstrating - the game.