The full-time program I am taking is called “Microbial Ecology.” The Ecology bit I understand. The Microbial stuff … I know the microbes are important, and the way they function is important, and I am enjoying bits and pieces of the learning, but I am handicapped in having no way to know which pieces of information are fundamental and which are, if not optional, at least side-notes to the basics. I would like a “skeleton” of sorts to hang the flesh of it all on.
And just as I think I have grasped something, a new piece of information comes along that confuses me about what I already know. Then, just as I start to get myself back on track, something else blindsides me. I don’t get any time to rest, or recover. Just one more BIG IDEA after another.
It is as if everything is very very important and if I don’t learn it all I won’t ever understand any of it. This is an unfamiliar feeling, and an uncomfortable one.
This will be a valuable lesson when I am a teacher in a classroom all my own. In the meantime, it is frustrating and I spend part of each day in tears and the rest either trying to catch up to an unknown, elusive goal or doing the other part of my life: being a mother.
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