Learning by the cat method.

My cat peed on one of my books. It was a direct result of my testing Mark Twain's claim that if you hold a cat by the tail you will learn things you cannot learn any other way. That cat was out for revenge. We both learned from the experience.

What I think about learning something new is that it's also a good idea to start at the bottom and work your way up. The only exception is swimming. In swimming you should start on top of the water and try to stay there. That's the whole point of swimming. Swimming is something everybody should know how to do. There are some who never learn how. I'm a pretty logical thinker so it also stands to reason that any body lined with fat would float and therefore swimming would be easy. I know this to be untrue. Take my corpulent body for example. It does not float and consequently I can't swim. I've preached many long stirring sermons to myself exhorting the virtues of posessing that lifesaving ability. But the awful truth is that I just never got the knack of synchronizing my arms and legs. Instead each limb operates independently and seems totally unaware of what the other three are doing. The result is ugly. The last time I was in a pool I beat the water madly into a froth of foam as I sunk slowly to the bottom. This amazed the lifeguard and the small crowd who had gathered at the edge of the pool to watch. After reviving me the lifeguard told me kindly that it wasn't my fault that I couldn't swim. The crowd nodded in silent unison at his thoughtful comment and many smiled encouragingly at me and I felt better about myself.

So the long and short of it is that I don't venture into water above my knees. I will admit to being afraid, but not of water. I'm afraid that there is something very big with sharp white teeth deep under the water that is going to rise up and bite me. I am sure there are others out there like me.

As I have been going through the krl2pt0 training I have been offered up a splendid opportunity to find those other people like me. In addition, I've listened to podcasts, signed up for a del.icio.us account and collected websites on many of my interests, fears & phobias and have stumbled across an assortment of astounding and startling information that I had never given much thought.

I have to admit to being significantly cranky a few times when I was struggling with a particular assignment that was proving to be more formidable than trying to get a toilet seat cover to stay on long enough to get seated on it before the whole thing slides into the water or the floor. Sometimes I felt wildly befuddled by it all. I have a history with IT things. Normally when someone from IT tries to elucidate me to the wonders of the virtural world an odd fuzzy buzzing emitts from somewhere deep within my brain until I can't hear a thing they are saying and my lazy eye begins to wonder. Shortly I begin to feel like an abysmally stupid pinhead and spend my time smiling and nodding encouragingly, trying to pretend I'm not a dimwitted booby.

But this time it is different. I have the feeling that if I keep at it that damned buzzing will stop and I will end up learning a lot and I'll be quite chipper and pleased with myself. I've already had an exhilarating learning experience with a podcast on zombies. I learned the darnest things and have a completely new outlook on that hatchet in the library closet that is part of our disaster kit. It is kept right next to the courier boxes. Tune in next week for the rest of the story.