Is there anything as energizing as discovering your own ignorance?

I know I tend to be an intellectual snob.  I'm well-read, stay on top of the news, and could win a fortune on "Cash Cab", but gods, there's nothing like going back to school to help you realize how much you don't know.  For some folks, that might be depressing, but for me it's like crack.  My mind wont shut down, I'm reading six hours a day, and resenting the gainful employment that's paying for the honor I have of discovering how ridiculously limited my knowledge is...

My current class is called California Ethnic Literature - a junior level class I need to supplement my 2, count them 2, degrees in literature in order to get my high school english credential.  Oh how I squirm to remember that I characterized this as some "politically correct class" to toss off... I'm getting repaid for my presumption in spades...

I suppose you're all already aware of such wonders as Robert Hass' poem Palo Alto Marshes, the sickening but strangely wonderful set of stories called Grand Avenue, and the delightful novel Bone?  All new to me, and astonishing... and all so bizarrely local.  I mean this stuff takes place within 30 minutes of my home...

Like most Americans, I'm uncomfortable discussing race.  But shit, there's just no getting away from the profound issues in these works.  I'm feeling some significant racial guilt.  Good stuff here, really good stuff, if I can stomach the pain of so many lost souls...

Segoy, as created by Ursula LeGuin, is a dragon.  Powerful, immortal, crafty and cunning, as all dragons are supposed to be.  He even has a sly sense of humor, which I appreciate. 

I'm not a dragon.  I'm powerful in the way all women are powerful, probably not cunning but able to be crafty, and yes, I do have a sly sense of humor.  But the reason I admire Segoy, and chose him as a sort of totem creature, is because of his relationship to language.  He's said to speak in the language of the making, words of such truth that they have enormous power and are indeed, in the right mouths, magical.

But it isn't simple, this truth he speaks.  Each word is truthful absolutely, but only in context to other words, and circumstances.  His words weave an enormous web of complexity and beauty, but they dont mean the same thing to everyone, even when they are, afterall, true.  Because truth is, in and of itself, complex.  This facinates me.  So alright, you've now identified me as a Romantic, in the 19th century sense of the word, and you're right... a Romatic dragon? yes, that's just ironic enough to work...

 This whole blogging thing is new to me.  I never really thought I had much to say that anyone else would want to read, and I still dont.  But I do have things I want to say even if no one else ever reads them; experiences I'd like to puzzle out through words, as tricky and crafty as they may be.  I'm just beginning a great change in my life, having ditched a very successful 18 year career as a marketing executive in order to follow my heart and become a high school English teacher.  It was a change that began slowly, and then gathered momentum with such swiftness it still leaves me a little shaken.  One would think it would be harder to just walk away from a carrer that I had invested so much of myself in, but really, it was as easy as breathing.  I have never done something purposefully that felt as absolutely right as this.  But really, I've never been particularly purposeful about my life.  I'm blessed (or cursed) with the sort of temperament that can find enjoyment in most anything.  I'm dreadfully curious, and am able to be happy for a long time just sifting through the rubble looking for good bits, and usually finding them.  But slowly I was losing may capacity for joy, and that's far too much to give up.

So here I am, a student again (well, I'm always a student really, but now it's formal again), hoping my brains haven't all gone to sleep, feeling much more like a dinosaur than a dragon on campus, but overall, ready for another adventure.

I'll keep you posted.