Learning for Life, Majoring in World

After spending the past three days buried in articles on child obesity and marketing of food and beverages on TV, I am finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel! Or I guess it hasn’t been all that dark actually. Yesterday, when I had finished going through all the research articles I had found on the topic, it struck me how much I have learned in the past few days about a topic that I knew absolutely nothing about only a week ago. That thought was immediately followed by “What will be next? The new nutrition learning material that my professor just posted on our class website? Or my Romanian distance course, on which I have fallen behind? Those guitar lessons on YouTube that Dan recommended? Or should I just take time to read that book on the Medici women that I picked up at the Metropolitan Museum last time I was in NY?” And then I realized how much I love learning! Not just in an academic setting and not just topics related to my work, but almost anything that makes me understand the world better. And music and dancing of course, which are almost at the bottom of my personal version of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. My favorite blogger right now wrote a while ago that when someone in her class had asked her what her major was, she had answered “I guess I am majoring in life!” Well, I guess I am majoring in World. And it is a lifelong project!

Next up is a field trip for my World class, as I am off again to the Western Balkan in little less than a week. Hopefully, I will be able to make a stop in Paris on the way back to see V and to acquire some extra credit! But first, a few more hours on my nutrition policy assignment!

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