A New Academic Experience at Age 60.

I started kindergarten at age 4.  Hey, my parents had a house full of rambunctious boys and were very motivated to pack us off to Lowell Elementary as soon as they could swing it.

After going straight through from that point to the end of Med School I continued to regularly take CME classes.  Upon retirement I went directly into the local Tech School and had an enjoyable fall semester learning things.

But recently I did something that I had never before done or even considered in a 56 year run as a student.  I dropped a class.

In my Carpe Diem mode post medicine I see time differently.  One one level I have an abundance of it.  Just ask my better half who regards me lolling about the house as an affront to the Natural Way of Things.  But from another perspective we never know how much time we have.  Decades.  Years. Or maybe not.  Time should be considered precious as we really don't know how great a supply of it we actually have.

So when the pneumatics course I was signed up for did not develop as I had anticipated I just dropped it.  I quit.  And that is something I rarely do in any path I have set my feet to.

The instructors were nice guys and the subject matter interesting if not immediately practical for me.  But when much of the learning is on line and the "in the lab" skills test outs appeared perfunctory it got me to wondering if it was the best use of my time.  I guess I am still Old School enough to prefer traditional teaching methods.  Like we had in School.  In Old times.

I might start up classes again in the summer or more likely fall sessions.  But short term this frees me up to do more with robotics and to get back to studying Italian in prep for a spring trip.

Not something most people can say they have become in retirement.  Tech School Dropout.