Not so many years have passed since I attended university that I can't recall at least some things from that era. Although close friends can recall numerous embarrassing comical adventures that found me during that time, I've lately been reflecting on the words inscribed on the main uni library: "The library is a summons to scholarship".
Matched with another snippet of wisdom (aren't the best quotes the short and simple ones?) - "Education's best result is questioning", which I heard early in my college career from a professor. A psychology professor. Many people have argued over the centuries on the topic of the core area of study that best supports humanity. Scientists go further and debate amongst themselves about which is the "central science". However, I'll make the case for psychology...
Psychology certainly ties back to Education's best result. Nothing brings up more questions than amateurly applying psychology to understand peoples' motives, actions, words, and expressions. Even more questions can be raised and pondered when one tries to apply psychology to analyze complete strangers. In most amateurish form, this is the classic game of guess the guest, where one makes an attempt to figure out the life context of someone with nothing more than a glance. Hardly scholarship, but it does exercise the memory of those 75 minute lectures of psychology 101, and also uses any "wisdom" accrued to help better understand the anthropologic logic unfolding before my eyes. And it's fun...especially when you actually meet the person/people in question and get to confirm or deny any guesses.
It's important to understand that I would never consider using any conjecture to judge, but rather simply to exercise the brain a bit. In recent days I've been in some unfamilar settings, with cultural norms different to mine, and with time to ponder, all of which has provided a wealth of opportunties to question, answer, and question the answers. Not taken scientifically, these observations and interactions provide a great bit of fun, as I learn about what makes the folks in this area "tick", and at what pace they "tick tock". 
Furthering the exploration is finding a whole new sub-culture, complete with it's own dialect. This raised so many questions, which felt almost like a Christmas gift in a way. Luckily, I was in an area rich with information about the culture and traditions so I wasn't left longing. The historical path of just this Gullah/Geechee sub-culture alone is so deeply fascinating - although many don't really even know of it's existence, it has had a major impact on their own history in various ways. What went through the minds of the people who were part of the origination of this culture? Or, what goes through the mind of someone far removed from it, when they hear the first ever description of it? These questions are equally important, in my mind, to questions of dates and places of origin - the SAT question stuff.
So, what's the point of this blog entry? I can't exactly answer that just yet, but I can certainly ask the questions. Merry Christmas, and Happy Holidays to all.
