"Over"-educated

In my -educated- opinion, there is no such thing as too much education. The only instance in which education can be harmful (besides shoddy, misinformed education) is in the job market. However, this is a failure of presentation, not education. If you provide excessive information on a resume, of course it's going to confuse a potential employer about your fitness for a given position.

Moving on.

I'm going back to school.

AGAIN.

I'm so thrilled, I'm turning pink. (That's not really true. My recent return to the world of those who swim compulsively has me turning quite brown.)

Nevertheless, I am going back to school and I couldn't be happier. I was one of those weird kids who dreaded summer. Even though I found the social environment of school completely toxic, not being surrounded by at least the pretense of constant learning left me cold. It's unfair that this was the case, though. You know all those studies that have shown that kids whose parents own books are more likely to go to college? They had NOTHING on my parents' library. My parents had no fewer than six shelves LOADED with books. Science books. Math books. Grammar books. Religious texts. Poetry. Literature. You name it, we had it at our fingertips. Both my brother and I had our own bookshelves in our own rooms from a very early age. And now my husband and I own more books than we can reasonably fit on the six bookshelves we already have. You should see my Amazon wishlist. My friends, literacy (and book collecting in turn) is a disease, and one I am ecstatic to suffer from. Perhaps this is why I am driven to degree upon degree.

As I sat (tentatively) planning my coursework for this program, I, as usual, had trouble paring down the courses I'm interested in taking. There's simply more I MUST learn than I have time for in the 39 hours available for coursework in this degree.

I think the trick to owning books, as opposed to simply reading books, is the constant reminder that there is an abundance of knowledge just waiting to be discovered. It creates a thirst that knows no slaking. This is more than curiosity. The word thirst is used in this context so often that we forget why it is used until it becomes apparent in our own existences. Humans are about 60% water. It is necessary to organ function, tissue stability, cell function. It is so profoundly essential to life that even the shape of our nations rise and fall on the availability of water and our cities--even modern cities--revolve around water sources. Thirst builds nations. Thirst raises Kings. Thirst tears apart the fabric of humanity. Thirst is unavoidable. It plagues us every breath of every day. Water is more vital than food. We can store food in our bodies and thus survive solely on water for great stretches of time (some of us more than others, myself in particular). But we don't store water well. It comes, it goes, it washes away. And in spite of its transience, water fills our dreams and our stories and the sacred rituals of our lives. This is what it means to thirst. This is what it means to need knowledge.

It is the presence of so much information that builds the desire for yet more. It is a greed, but one more noble and more disciplined than asceticism. This thirst has ultimate power. It ends poverty, it prevents wars, it cures disease, it fundamentally changes the nature of existence and how we experience it.

Back from that tangent, I hope that this degree will help me do just those things. I will, in a few very long weeks of arduous anticipation, be commencing study toward a master's degree in social work. My aim, and I think it is a very feasible one, is to build a set of skills which will permit me to be usable in the world of reconciliation in post-crisis societies. I intend to continue (or, perhaps, resume) my communion with the genocide studies community, and hopefully sneak my way into some productive employ. Hopefully, I will get many years of challenging effort out of this program before I feel the need, that thirst, come calling for more. The trick will be focusing on practical courses and leaving extraneous theory and methods courses for later endeavors. It is hard for me to elect this professional program (especially one as touchy-feely as social work... but who am I kidding? I work in genocide. It doesn't get more touchy-feely --or less touchy-feely-- than that). I still feel my place and my passion is in academics. But I am not ready for that yet, and I may never be. And as much as academia is a vital and involved part of human society (despite protestations from those who are less informed), bringing the insights of academia to bear in people's lives is the final step.