1 year of preschool.
1 year of kindergarten.
12 years to get all the way through high school.
9 years of undergraduate education, at 3 different institutions.
7 years of graduate school with (almost) 3 degrees.
There is a ridiculous amount of things I could write about that I've learned in school, but isn't it much more interesting to contemplate all the things I never learned in school?
Here are Andy & I at our college graduation...soo naive.
1. Personal Finance--I'm still learning all about personal finance, but I know I would have been much better financially had I actually known anything at all about it earlier in my life. I pretty much floated around barely making ends meet while having a great time out and about for most of my adult years until we got married. I try not to think about how much money I wasted, but we're making up for it now. Hopefully by the end of this year, we'll be getting things together enough to actually be grown up about all of our money.
2. Birthing Babies--I WISH I had learned something about birthing babies in school, and I'm completely serious about this. I had no idea the intricacies and decisions that went into how to bring a baby out of a mother and into the world until I was pregnant. I also had no idea how to care for a newborn until I had my own. I probably could have learned something like this had I actually taken an Anatomy class in high school, but I could never fit it in my schedule between AP Biology and Band...Nerd Alert. I definitely educated myself on this one later by reading far too many books for my own good.
3. Changing Car Tires--They honestly should teach this in driver's education classes. My teacher was too busy taking
4. Navigating Social Media--I wish I could be better at this, though it didn't really exist when I was in high school. Yeah, I'm old enough to remember when everyone had an AOL account and chatting had to wait until the modem stopped making all kinds of dial-up noises. So I guess I'll give my HS a pass on this one. I seem to be feeling it out on my own fairly well anyway.
5. Style--I still have none. I wasn't expecting them to teach a style class, as that would be far too conforming for style creativity. I really just wish I would have had the opportunity to learn anything about style and how to find my own. 34 feels like a really late age to actually start caring about these things.
6. Opinions Differ and that's ok. Just because you come from similar circumstances and had all the same education, NEVER assume that someone has come to the same conclusions as you have. This is so true for politics, relationships, and all manner of personal and professional interactions. I WISH I would have learned this much earlier than I did. It could have seriously helped me understand to just stay away from some people.
Thanks Mama Kat, as always for making me think about things a little differently. You rock!