The Ecq Review

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I just finished the beautiful but brutal “The Best Day, The Worst Day: Life with Jane Kenyon” by Donald Hall. It took me two and a half months.

It’s beautiful to listen to Hall’s love for his wife Jane Kenyon. And absolutely brutal to hear about all the struggles she went through with leukemia.

It just reminded me too much of my dad’s struggles with brain cancer.

Beautiful book, but an incredibly hard read to anyone who has lost someone to cancer.

I much preferred Donald Hall’s sparer book of poems and letters to Jane Kenyon including after death “Without”. That I flew through, this was much, much harder.

***1/2

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I love to learn new things.

I took a Community Health Worker class at Housatonic Community College in Bridgeport, CT a couple years ago. Very interesting class, but didn’t follow up with it enough for jobs I don’t think.

I have the MBA, and I really haven’t done anything with it.

Considering taking some accounting courses and maybe getting a CPA.

Although the idea doesn’t thrill me, seems more like something that makes sense to do than something that I want to do.

Going to go check out Super Saturday at Housatonic tomorrow (every community college in the state is doing it for admissions).

I don’t think I need another degree so thinking of taking a class or two.

Maybe Intermediate Accounting I if I qualify. I do have a Financial Accounting and I think Managerial Accounting course from the Drucker School. It’s crazy it’s 16 years ago in 2001.

I do wonder if I made the right choice going there. The career services were terrible and I considered places like the Fletcher School and the School of International Studies at Johns Hopkins.

I also have often considered the Ph.D. but the cost-benefit analysis in humanities and social sciences is terrible. Sadly that is often true for STEM majors like Biology and Chemistry too. Even with the supposed demand they often lead to post-docs and not always to university jobs.

It’s crazy how much schools cost too.

I almost wonder if there are other methods than college.

Like dorms or housing that has classes and lectures.

To pay a quarter million dollars for a degree like at Brandeis or Pomona College or Amherst or Yale is just crazy (tuition plus room and board). And that doesn’t even include the lost income.

A lot of academic types live in a nation of debt with student loans and credit cards.

Having $100,000+ in debt is a tough way to start life.

But I keep wondering what’s next. Maybe I just need to make a choice.

I still like the idea of going for an APRN in psychiatry in some ways. Although I am not great with blood so being a nurse might be hard for me. And would be a ton of debt, and an incredibly difficult first year.

What was your best academic choice?
What is the best thing you ever learned in school?

Are you happy with your education?

If it wasn’t for the cost I might have a bunch more degrees, but who knows. I know we can do so much better.