Going to Class

Life in Corvallis is beginning to shift (though FAR from over) from unpacking boxes to dabbling in the academic life of OSU and its community of folks who make us feel really dumb.
Those of you who have followed this blog surely know we have attended scads of Beaver sporting events. That continues, as well as hosting about a dozen Mazama & Henley friends who came to Corvallis to watch their basketball teams in the state tournament. But now we have more free time so we have joined the OSU Alumni Association, the Academy of life Long Learning, The OSU Folklore Association, and continually watch the University Calendar to find events, exhibits, lectures and programs of interest, not to mention, Sheryl’s role of Aunt Ev in the upcoming production of the Miracle Worker.

We have attended “What bugged the dinosaurs?’ (insects trapped in amber), “Medicine in Early Christianity,” “Global Warming and Tropical Rain Forests,” “Is there life in the Universe – The Drake Equation,” “Roving Mars,” “Glass on the run” “Is there Life After Death – The Debate,” “The physics of cancer treatment,” and some other junk I don’t seem to remember.

Depending on who you are that might be reading this you may say, “Gosh, that sounds interesting!” or “Why would you go to that crap?” Well both responses would be appropriate. If you are of our generation you probably recall only a few good college professors who made things interesting. Others simply used a chalkboard or maybe showed slides while they read from their yellowed notes in a boring monotone.

Nowadays modern professors in this futuristic, whiz-bang, glitzy world of high tech show a power-point presentation while they read from their yellowed notes in a boring monotone. Shouldn’t we have known? Some things just do not change. As I recall from college days, once we had suffered through that freshman year we started to ask around and figure out who were the interesting professors and which classes were actually worthwhile. Well, I think we are just now finishing our freshman year of Corvallis retirement and we shall start asking around! But it will probably just remain a crapshoot.