So the school year is over and I'm home for the summer. It has been an interesting year and if I were to describe it with one word it would be "enlightening". There were a lot of things I learnt this year, both academic and life lessons that I'm sure I've already forgotten due to the massive amount of alcohol consumed on my last day. I just wanted to take a few minutes to talk about some of the more prominent lessons of this past year (and I may slip in one or two things from years ago). I'm going to write this in parts, one lesson today, and one each day over the next few days. Hope you like them.
The first lesson I want to talk about is a life lesson. Around Christmas I was sitting in the student study lounge (rarely frequented by students, ironically) and I over heard one of my classmates, Mary, having a conversation about life, the universe, and everything with the guy that had convinced me to join the program I was in. He was in the second year of the program, which means that he has now graduated. I'll admit I was eavesdropping for a while but eventually I joined in on the conversation to listen to what he had to say. Among the topics of discussion he talked about were God/ religion, stereotypes, technology, and life overall. Within a half hour of listening to him, I'm pretty sure I would have followed him anywhere. He had a way of speaking that made everything he said make sense. There are a few things he said that I remember but the one thing that I absolutely loved is "we're all waiting for the one big thing in our life to happen. You can live your whole life without a big thing but if you ever want to write your life story, you need a big thing. Without it, your story is just a series of anecdotes that people will read in the bathroom, and can set down at any time.... no real story worth remembering." That is something I find very substantial. I don't intend to write my life story any time soon, but even this blog is just a series of anecdotes. There's nothing big that they all centre around or have in common. They are just the preambles of a "Gentleman". The half hour I spent talking to Phil and Mary was a conversation that I think I'll remember for a long time. It gave me new perspectives on God, stereotypes, technology, and where life is going, and how you're going to direct it. It's something we should all think about on a regular basis.
