8 April 2018 – Do I want to be a student again?

I thought about it this morning. The last time I had to sit in a classroom or deal with grades was 1985. That is right, more than 30 years ago. I still have not touched my post 9-11 GI Bill. All except for Miriam have aged out of eligibility. When she and Noah were eligible, they first were using their VA benefits. End result is that I have up to 36 months of educational benefits which will expire in 2021 shortly after my passport will expire. Not that the two have exactly anything to do with each other but that will be the 10 year mark since I retired from the Army.

Apparently now benefits have to be used in 15 years, but I don’t think that change is retroactive. And in any case, giving me another five years just means that I will be five years older. It is a good change and will benefit those who retired at 20 years with small children in the house. Benefits won’t expire before those children have a chance to benefit.

But me? Do I want to let the whole things go? Or do I want to go back to school. And since I already have three degrees, what do I really want with another degree.

Given all of that, I have been looking at University California, Hastings Law School. No – I have absolutely no interest in becoming a lawyer – one of those in the family is more that enough, thank you. But they have a Masters of Studies in Law program that might be interesting. It is designed for health care, tech and public policy types who need to understand the law (in order to use/abuse it). I applied on a lark,, sort of. Like any other application process it was a pain. Paying the application fee wasn’t the issue, it was working myself up to asking a couple of friends for recommendations and getting copies of all transcripts sent to the school. That is right, all transcripts. Apparently it has something to do with having completed files for accreditation inspections and qualifications. I am not sure how relevant an undergraduate transcript from the late 60s is, but obviously, my opinion on that item wasn’t asked. At least both U of MN and Johns Hopkins can send everything secure electronically and I didn’t have to wait for the mail (and cheaper. Nice.)

They are willing to have me start in the fall. In fact, fall starts are mandatory since they offer certain required courses only in the fall.

This is going to play havoc with both my professional meeting schedule and the fall transatlantic cruise season.

There was an alternative through Hastings-UCSF in Health Policy as an on-line course, but if I am going to do this, I think that in person would be better.

Besides, once I get through, I will help them restructure so that the course is more interning to the working person for whom it is designed. No one who is working full time can take out 1-2 years for a degree. The MBA programs have figured this out and just about all offer night/weekend extended options for the mid-career professional.

Just what I need – a new windmill upon which to tilt!

written in the middle of the night should not often be shared. They come out of dreams and drip confusingly from fingers stumbling to record them before they fade off into the mists of nightmares. Looking at such thoughts caught between waking and sleeping further devolve into confusion by the helpfulness of the spell checkers on an iPad which can only lead to further confusion about that line between thought and reality. Wakefulness and not – when you are startled awake by something you were sure you heard only to be surrounded by silence, but that light of morning renders most of those words incoherent.

And so it was at darkness time when that line between waking and dreaming left me wondering if I had actually written anything, recorded anything in the dark by touch. Certain that I had found the appropriate meds to put me back to sleep and avoid dream of Parasites (thank you so much Seanan McGuire) or floating poisons in my body looking for new targets and wiping out hapless brain cells out of boredom.

Its quiet. The Brits around me are stunned. These are well educated people who are concerned about their future. They are not those who voted for Brexit. They are also quite aware of the fear and anger in the Caucasian  population that see itself becoming increasingly irrelevant as demographics change. They are comfortable ignoring the Irish and Scotts here and would rather not have to deal with the waves of immigration that have arrived from the Commonwealth over the last 30 years. Going back to the 60s is a dream that has long passed.

In the US, segments of our population are perfectly capable of telling themselves stories that don’t include the Spanish settling what is now the US West Coast long before the ancestors of most Western Europeans arrived; They can complete ignore the native populations who “weren’t using the land” as having both been there first and having any rights.

The next four years are going to be interesting. As much as the 60s in some people’s eyes were better than today – we can’t go back. We are in a world economy. What we do affects not just our country but the rest of the world.

America has always been great – we just don’t agree what great means. For me it means education and the ability to better one’s self. To walk in the evening unsafe and unimpeded. To keep politics out of medical procedures and to – as MG Lewis, the CG of 1AR when I was downrange with them in Bosnia, put it –

Dignity and Respect

Its been a tough year in ways that were not expected. I’ve always acknowledged being a bit rigid; it helps actually a lot in dealing with those organizations which are rule run due to massive size and complicated missions. That and an ability to learn rules as well as how to make them work for you rather than against one made surviving in the military for more than 30 years possible, if not always fun. We (the royal “we” here) are totally and completely ignoring the two miserable years I spent in Munich.

I really don’t appreciate dirty air, poverty, and government corruption. The time I spent in India and Nepal was more than challenging in that respect. I learned, experienced, met some incredible people, but don’t think I will be making a trip back to either location in the near future. The experience also had me dropping a couple of envisioned trips which would have involved huge cities and more polluted air and replace them with a couple of other alternatives that involved rivers and rails rather than roads.

I have ceased watching the news completely, the political situation in the US has become too painful to watch.  We are still in limbo with the house renovation. Five adults and two dogs in one house is more challenge than I had planned on at this point in my life.

So here I sit, on ship contemplating what I should be doing better next year and thinking about the personal apologies I owe. In spite of disavowing pledges, oaths and promises – this coming year is going to be different.

except for maybe 1-2 skits involving dial-up menu options.

The venue? Freight & Salvage, a Coffee House institution in Berkeley.

The Show? Apparently their 23rd Annual Year in Review.

The audience? About 90+% senior citizens defined as mid-sixties and above. It was obvious that most of the crowd were regulars and less than discerning.

The performers were six “comedians” – four men/two women only one of which wasn’t white which pretty much matched the audience if you substitute Asian in the audience for Hispanic on stage.

This was not a performance I would recommend to anyone. Most of the skits had nothing to do with reviewing the past year – and it isn’t like one can’t find a huge amount of political fodder for subject matter…. and more to do with in-jokes, Berkeleyisms and various items that the performers seemed to find hilarious with more than the occasional audience puzzled look. The ethnic/gender related jokes weren’t either new or funny. Consistency was lacking – and more than once the performers spent more time addressing each other than the audience. The miking was abysmal with the volume completely out of control. It makes more sense to let people adjust their hearing-aids than to blast the rest of us who are within 10 rows of the theater back. Head mikes are the standard and can be properly set up ahead of time. Passing around a hand held mike is – as was demonstrated more than once – a recipe for extraneous noise, thumps and variability in understanding difference voice ranges of the performers.

I wasn’t the only one who raised my hand when one of the “entertainers” asked “who is here for the LAST time.”

We left at the intermission. Out side there were a few small huddles of smokers including a couple of obvious fans telling one of the organizers that “this was the best show yet!” Which leaves me feeling that the standard here isn’t very high.

Think more than once about comedy and insider shows here. Stick with the Coffee House music performances by known musicians. Otherwise – avoid this venue like the plague.