Con'GRAD'ulations

"Yo, look it up dude.  If you put that Sh*t in the ground, a f**king mushroom grows," Ah the sweet sounds of college students.  This is an actual quote coming from a group of boys I passed on my way to see the career counselor at my alma mater.  I wonder what kind of mushrooms they were referring to.  Portobello most likely.

Coming from an insurance company, a university is like an alternate universe.  People are walking leisurely, reading outside on the library steps.  The men have earrings and the women have Greek letters across the back of their pants.  While one student plays a guitar another tosses a frisbee and a professor catches it.  A girl is frantically writing some last minute assignment and a boy is smoking.  I resist the urge to tell him to stop now before it gets too hard.  Laughter and insecurities fill the air.  There is this special aura of growth and learning, development and dreaming that make the campus quad come alive.  It puts an extra spring in your step, because with education the possibilities are endless.  The only direction you can go is up.  You learn here, experience here, become a better you through knowledge here.  It is incredible.

I ran into an old professor who calmly congratulated me when he heard I had been laid off, and then offered to write me recommendation letters without skipping a beat.  Under his sunglasses and multi-colored beret, he smiled sincerely at me.  And why not.   He was out for a stroll on a beautiful campus, a break between classes where he teaches something he cares about.

I joined a lunch table of an old history professor and his history colleagues.  We chatted for a bit and they also told me congratulations in their own thoughtful ways.  Soon the conversation turned to history, confirming what we all always thought we knew.  Teachers eat, sleep and breathe their passions.  Interestingly enough, this also happens at Insurance lunches.  At least I think.  I was sleeping.

Today reminded me how great it was to be a student.  I look forward to trying it again.