10:31 p.m. | 2005-04-02 Serendipity. Recently, I set about to unpack and �decorate� my office at work. Several unpacked boxes have kept company with framed acknowledgements of my academic achievements. I unpacked a couple of boxes and called in the appropriate hammer and nail people to hang my stuff up. The hammer and nail people were surprised by my bevy of stuff. I was somewhat embarrassed. I have eight accolades now hanging on my office walls and two more that I need to frame. There are three degrees amongst all that; the rest are specific honors. I suppose. Honestly, I�ve never known quite what to do with all that stuff. Part of me wants to hang it all up because Lord knows I worked long and hard academically to achieve all this. The other part? Yeah, seems like bragging. In the end, I decided that my achievements should be on the walls. I earned that much. Work walls though since I don�t have room at home. In furtherance of decorating, I decided to finally frame my law degree. Seven years after I obtained it. So, I set off today to obtain a frame from the law school I attended. I haven�t been back there for a long time so that was kind of weird. The frustrating part? Yeah, the frame selling part of it was closed. But, I took a moment. It was very, very quiet on campus. No one was really around. In fact, it felt like I had the place to myself. I sat down and took a moment to reflect. If you�ve not been to law school, it�s hard to describe. Mostly you go there and are purposely humiliated, mocked and shamed for years. (Four years for me as a night student.) By, um, your professors. In front of your peers. That effect is multiplied if you worked during the day at a law firm, as did I. Basically, I was humiliated, mocked and shamed at work and school for four very long years in order to obtain this academic achievement. I was told, oh so many times, that this approach was necessary to teach me how to survive in the �real world�. The sad thing? I already knew about the �real world�. Which kind of helped actually. Come to think of it. The sheltered day students? Yeah. They didn�t see that coming at all. Anyway, it was quite empowering (gag) to sit there and be peaceful. At a place that used to tear my stomach up into pieces. That feeling was so great that I wasn�t even irritated that I couldn�t buy the frame I sought. As I walked back out to my car, I noticed that one of my tires was quite deflated. I really don�t think I would�ve noticed that if I hadn�t made the trip to my old law school. Ever since I drove over the neighboring worksite and my tire picked up a screw, I�ve been worried about having a flat. I need to get that tire fixed or replaced, but today? Yeah, I settled on putting some air back into it. It made me chuckle though. I may have a law degree but I�ve never put air into one of my tires. I figured that I�d asked someone at the gas station to help me out, but for the first time ever, NO ONE was at the station at the time I needed assistance. Which was odd since it�s always crowded there. So I did it myself. I have absolutely no idea if my tire is underinflated or overinflated since the manual is written in some obscure car language, but it seems to be okay for now. See, you can have a law degree and still be ignorant. To prove that point, I checked the manual after I put air in my tire. Okay, �ignorant� might not be the right word here � although it�s certainly applicable � perhaps the word I�m looking for is completely and totally �uninterested�. To sum up, I think you can be educated, ignorant and uninterested all at the same time. And, today was my day for that. your thoughts? seed flower