Not Quite Ready for Socks

I woke up this morning to find that autumn had arrived. This is my favorite season, but I prefer the gradual transition of seasons I remember from my youth where one started to notice little changes, a slight tinge to the leaves, flowers blooming less frequently, a little nip in the morning air that was forgotten by the time the sun reached it’s apex.

Instead, I feel like autumn is a house guest who, while eagerly anticipated, managed to catch an earlier flight, arrived a day early, and was found sleeping on my couch in the morning because the guest room wasn’t ready yet.

Yesterday I wore a tank top and a skirt of light cotton—my barely-there uniform of summer. Today I was scrambling for my sweats and long sleeved shirt. Just moments ago, I went downstairs to find my hoodie. This is too much change to take in all at once.

My hold out is footware. I spend most of the summer wearing as little on my feet as possible. I live in my sandals and my most recent purchase, a bright orange pair of Croc-like clogs. I bought them at the beach for four dollars a couple of weeks ago. I love them in all their garish beauty.

I’ve decided that, since they are a fall color, they will be acceptable to transition to the next season. They will alternate with my sneakers (my official footware for any season not summer).  And for the time being, I will hold out on wearing socks for as long as I can.

After all, who knows, maybe later it will warm up again.

On Picking our Paths

Photo © Cristina Kollet 2008

I work from home and I like listen to presentations or music as I work. It provides a substitute for the background noise that usually comes with an office and coworkers.
Lately I’ve been listening to the TED series of talks and one speaker has really caught my attention. If you get the chance I highly recommend these two talks by Sir Ken Robinson:

• Ken Robinson Says Schools Kill Creativity
• Sir Ken Robinson: Bring on the Learning Revolution!

In these talks, Sir Robinson talks (among other things) about how our Education system doesn’t recognize or reward individual talents. It’s designed to crank out professors and people to fill corporate jobs. He says it needs to change…I hope it does.

Like many, after high school, I went to college. Honestly, no other options were ever presented to me. I went to college because it was expected. That’s simply what one did after high school. I have no regrets about it. I am glad I went and I know there are many who want to go, that don’t get the chance.  But I didn’t exactly enter with a clear goal and I didn’t leave feeling very prepared.

At the time, my college program required students take a major, a minor, and a mini. The areas of study were to span three disciplines to make you a well-rounded student. I majored in English Lit and read mostly Shakespeare for four years. My minor was Anthropology (my backup because they didn’t offer a minor in Archeology) and my mini was Astronomy. Years later a friend, who happens to be an educator, told me "I never understood why you did that."