Over the course of my life (most recently over at Grau's) I have been accused of being poorly educated, owing to a lack of what is seen as proper schooling (I didn't go to college or university). I am very lucky though. I come from a family of very intelligent people, all intelligent in different ways. My grandad was for example, one of the first system analysts in the UK in the 50's when punch cards were being used to progam computers, my dad patented a variety of light engineering electro-plating inventions and my mom went through to get her degree and masters.
However I did none of this. Almost everything I know I taught myself. By that I mean that the important skills for life, rather than the basic literacy and numeracy skill syou should be taught in school. Rather than hinder my life I have found this to be the opposite and I am constantly learning from others (thank you Sally) or teaching myself whatever I need to know.
I cannot work in a structured environment, and must be free to make and learn from my mistakes (it made for some interesting experiences when I taught myself how to repair TV's!). From this it has enabled me to travel the world, live places I would never have dreamed of, meet people but most of all, throughout the whole of this, earn the respect of the people who I have worked for and with. I digress. Most people who talk to me or know me are surprised by the broad and deep knowledge I have of a variety of subjects, and are amazed when they find I have no degree. It has never occured to them before.
So you, the people out there with there college degrees, does education equal intelligence? Who are the people you respect and are they self taught, or formally educated, or both?
Work work work work work. There is a lot of it about at the moment. I am sure that various people (Harv :-P) will think it is in bad taste me going on about it, but it seems to be dominating my life at the moment.
And that is not good.
Let me digress. At the moment I am self employed (within a sense) and contract to another company. An offer to formalise my position at the company I contract too is expected wednesday (making a very happy Sally might I add) plus to work with the same group of companies. With me so far? No? Stop reading then :-P
The basics are that this will allow me more time to do all those things I like doing, such as spending time with Sally and Star, making innane posts on here and the like. It has been difficult to achieve this balance (ask Sally) but now we can kind of start planning for the more immediate future.
I will bet money I am not unique in this situation though. How many of you have been there, and what was the best thing about coming out the other side of it?
Harvey left a comment that a naked blog is a bad thing... Well I suppose it is in many respects. You come here to read and instead your are greeted by white more befitting of a hospital than a friendly place to be.
Nakedness has its place. Bedrooms, Harvey's literature, specialist beaches, Scandinavian films, but blogs? Nah. It did get me to thinking though - do we like what we see when we are naked? Can we stand to look at our own bodies? (not other peoples - we take that as a given in the right circumstances :-P). How do you feel about your physical self?
Despite what Contagion and Harvey seem to have been thinking, Sally has not killed me from peanut butter related poisoning. Sadly, there are a whole bunch of reasons that I have not been here, so boring that even listing them makes me want to commit suicide even now.
I feel bad that I have neglected people who have been good to me, and Contagion :-P However...
...my role at work has changed significantly and I am now in partnership in two business ventures and contracting for a thrid, so life has become a little hectic to say the least (plus I spend most of the day coding a website and other applications - so typing on my blog sometimes feels like a chore).
I missed all the news. I have no idea what is going on in the blogosphere, whether Evil Glenn has taken over the world or whether I have any people who bother reading me any more. I don't even read Sally anymore! Not good.
So your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to point me to the best of the recent posts that I might have missed (even if it in archives) so that I might catch up on my reading.
PS - Sorry to hear the Harvey lost his job. Someone who has been consistantly funny and a good friend even when I vanished does not deserve that kind of treatment. If I had a job to offer Harv, I would offer it to you.