WFC2013 and school

*insert something that you can start a blog post with*

So...

Now, after having established I do not know how to begin a blog post, I have two things for you today.

1. I don't think you heard the news yet.
A week ago or so I somehow ended up checking out if Patrick Rothfuss is ever in Europe. Just in case you don't know who he is, he's the writer I've been going on about for half the summer. From US, but US is far away. That's why checking if he's ever in Europe.
Turned out he'll be in Brighton, England, on the first weekend of November for World Fantasy Convention 2013. A day later I had gotten myself a ticket too. So, I guess I'm going to UK to a huge fantasy book convention. That's cool. Though I'm pretty much panicking every time I think about it.

2. School
So as you know, a couple of weeks ago I returned to the university after a year and a half of just hanging out and doing nothing. (Well, actually I did a lot of stuff, just not any studying.) Every time I'm there I feel like I shouldn't. That I don't belong to the academic world. Which I don't, really. I don't want to study and I don't want to take tests. This made me feel guilty, because seriously, I live in a country where university fees are literally nonexistent and the quality of education is among the best of the world. The I realised what my real problem is.
The problem isn't the being at school itself. I'm a curious person, I really like knowing all the cool things they teach us there. The problem is the tests. The problem is the papers I will have to write. The problem is all the tasks they give me, that cause stress and seem to suck out the joy of actually knowing something. The problem is I still have to do those things is I want to be at school, and that I have to graduate. The society expects it of me, and if I don't do as the society expects me to, I will end up cleaning churches or sitting at the check out counter in a grocery store, which I really don't want. But with only papers from a high school there isn't much people will let me do.

And that, I have a feeling, is a small problem.

I value smart people, and I value educated people, and I value knowledge and understanding. But this society works in a way that just knowing things and understanding the world well and complexly isn't enough. You have to have graduated in order to be noticed. You have to have a PhD or a masters thesis written before people believe you actually know something. Knowledge is valued, but only when it comes from a person who has a title that says they know something about it. As if a title and grades tell your actual knowledge about the thing in question. I'm aware that if someone had a PhD in biology, they very likely know a lot about biology. But people shouldn't assume others don't.
 I would love it if it was possible for me to just hang out at the university, attend classes that I find interesting. Learn just to know those things, and not to pass a test.  Remember what I find interesting and important, and use that wisdom for what I want. But I can't. If I don't progress in my studies I won't get money to live (since the amount of money students get in a month are so huge...), so I'd have to get that somewhere else. I just can't get a proper job, because I'm not highly enough educated.

That's actually another point. People can do a lot even if they're not experts. Look at dad. He did a whole assessment on whether jathropa is a good plant to grow for biofuel production with the help of a group of high school students. Not only them, I admit, but people with very little (10-12 years....) education can do a lot if they're given a chance.

... Where was I?

Right. I know that grades and papers from schools are a way of finding out who has the most knowledge, who has the deepest understanding. But there should be another way of showing your capability and your wisdom without having the papers of an engineer. Like the Ridiculously Old Fraud, in the fourth season of House, that House didn't end up hiring. He wasn't a doctor, just a guy who had been a cleaner person at a university and had seen all med school lectures enough times to be just as qualified to be a doctor as any of the other applicants. Just didn't have the papers.

I'm just saying. Knowledge without papers should be more appreciated. Or rather, it should be knowledge and understanding that we value, not the titles and grades themselves. I wish I had an actual solution to how to make that work.

So, there's some thoughts of mine from the last couple of days.

I went outside the other day, and realised it's suddenly become autumn, the colors shone bright. I could smell the cold starting to slowly creep to the world again.
Winter is coming.

~matu

PS. Why don't I see a tardigrade yet?