was it for this my life i sought?

during my four years studying civil engineering at the undergraduate level, i had the fantasy of being a sociologist. towards the end there, when i was really beginning to freak out about not knowing what i was gonna be when i grew up, and watching all my overachiever engineering friends head straight into grad school, there was a lot of nervous laughing for me. a lot of manical laughing, too. i used to joke that i would get a masters degree in sociology, but i never really laughed at that one.

and now, as my fellow CEs head back to bethlehem pennsylvania this month for our 5 year reunion, i find myself in a graduate sociology class. and the fates are laughing up a storm. because in that class, and the education course on experiential learning, and in the community development theory class, my head is spinning. but not with the joy of an academic world opened wide to me, that i have made my entree into a lifelong dream. no. it spins on an axis of incredulity, that we can spend an hour discussing what "learning" constitutes. and how about "experience"? that a group of highly educated phd students can sit and be perfectly serious about this winding conversation, thinking that it will actually achieve some higher purpose. i'm experience a jarring culture shock this week - it's the canary culture of practicality versus the academic social science culture of blather. it's my lists and agendas versus thier mental wanderings. the thing is, i know that i have to lose this competition. i have to put up the white flag and give in, and not only accept but participate.

in one week of classes, so many times have i wanted to bring attention to the class at the seeming unnecessariness of the conversation, but instead i am calling attention to myself. to force a redirection in approach and way of thinking. i don't know if that's really possible to the fullest extent - i'm me and i'll bend, but i won't break. i thought that moving to a new town, departing from one social scene and entering another, doing homework, that these would be the hardest. i never imagined that my biggest challenge would be stomaching my own dreams.