I’m a pilgrim today, traveling far to the east to the mysterious land of Wis-con-sin, where I shall spend some time in adoration of the son.
My middle child, the cute and monkey-like Connlann, is graduating from the University of Wisconsin Madison tomorrow, with a degree in English. Hooray for the hard work and success of our boy! Hooray for rituals of completion! Hooray for the end of chunky great tuition payments!
So, anyway, I shall be spending most of my time today driving, and most of tomorrow driving, and a good spell of tomorrow sitting in uncomfortable seats watching a ceremonial parade of strangers, but it is all worth it.
(Thanks to Lisa M for sending me the charming Happy Monkey illustration.)
Congratulations to Connlann getting his degree. Does this mean he’ll now have to go to work?
Congrats & Hooray & Happy Happy Monkey.
Congratulations!
But… English?
Ah, well, Happy Monkey anyway.
It is always wonderful to see ones offspring succeed. Congrats and happy monkey to one and all. Safe journey.
I remember you said that life begins when your kids go off to college. I guess then life becomes affordable once they also graduate. I seriously have to get mine on scholarships when the time comes.
He has discovered a passion for literature, so I think it is excellent that he has used his time at the university to further that interest. I tell everyone you don’t go to college to get a job, you go to college to become a better human being.
Congratulations to Connlann on receiving his degree. And to you and the trophy wife for making it possible. Best wishes to everyone. Happy Monkey.
A professor of mine was fond of saying, “A liberal Arts education is vocational training for the mind. Once you have that, you can do anything you want.” A stepping stone to live.
Congratulations to Connlann for graduating and to you for producing and guiding him! And a Happy Mythmas to you and all your readers!
Crap, and I’m flying to visit my parents today, else I’d rope you into eating lunch or something.
Squiddhartha:
At least he didn’t graduate with a degree in divinity!
Anyway, Happy Monkey PZ & Connlann!
OT:
Obama YouTube address about science
“Because the truth is that promoting science isn’t just about providing resources – it’s about protecting free and open inquiry. It’s about ensuring that facts and evidence are never twisted or obscured by politics or ideology. It’s about listening to what our scientists have to say, even when it’s inconvenient – especially when it’s inconvenient. Because the highest purpose of science is the search for knowledge, truth and a greater understanding of the world around us.”
Sweet.
#8 ‘A professor of mine was fond of saying, “A liberal Arts education is vocational training for the mind. Once you have that, you can do anything you want.” A stepping stone to live.’
I agree wholeheartedly.
Off topic: from Canada’s Globe and Mail
POETIC JUSTICE
The Shoe Fits
JOHN ALLEMANG
jallemang@globeandmail.com
December 20, 2008
Journalist Muntader al-Zaidi has asked Iraq’s Prime Minister to forgive his “ugly act” of throwing shoes at George Bush – news report
We know you must apologize
And mutter badly scripted lies
To save some face and help appease
Stern men who fear 11-Ds.
But though they’ve made you sound contrite,
That can’t diminish our delight
At acts that might have once seemed rude,
But now deserve our gratitude.
Sorry I left out three stanzas:
It’s not just you. We feel the same –
The awful, helpless sense of shame
That on our watch as humankind,
The world bent to his empty mind.
So when you grabbed your shoes and threw,
Revenge was ours – at last he knew
What drives an angry man to grieve
These wasted years of make-believe.
And now you’ve earned, for your dissent,
A course in anger management –
But swift reprisals can’t undo
The power of a well-tossed shoe.
Be careful, It’s snowing like crazy out there, and the blizzard will be in full swing when you are driving back. Congrats to your son, and have a great trip.
Well done and congratulations Connlann! I’m studying English myself, hopefully I’ll graduate sometime soon.
Congratulations to you, PZ, on your son’s accomplishment. I hope one day to have the same sort of experience, but my kid is still finding himself. (groans) Between my wife and I, we still have four ‘boys’ at home, including a college grad and two collegians. You couldn’t cut their umbilicals with a chainsaw.
Congrats all around!
Congratulations to your son, PZ. I wish him well in whatever future endeavors he chooses.
Happy Monkey to The Connlann.
Ah PZ, I too know the joy of an empty nest. My two daughters couldnt wait to leave and I had to kick my son out. He said to me ‘Why do I have to move?’. I told him we were selling the 4 bedroom mansion for a smaller place (no room for them to move back in). Then he asked what my wife and I were going to do without them. I couldnt resist, I said chase my wife around the house naked. He made the most horrible face and then said ‘EWWWWWWW. Gross..’. I still laugh about that (obviously).
You pay tuition? Isn’t there some professional courtesy thing to use? Why didn’t he go where you are at UMM?
Why didn’t he go where you are?
When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.
– attributed by Reader’s Digest, Sept. 1937. This quote has been attributed to Mark Twain, but until the attribution can be verified, the quote should not be regarded as authentic. Mark Twain Quotes
PZ said:
I’ve said something similar to this when people express surprise that I’ve “allowed” my kids go to liberal arts colleges: “I’m not sending mys kid to college for career training, I’m sending them to college to become better educated.” But I may like your version even better.
Congrats to the Myers family! Oh Happy Monkey!
Enjoy the band. It’s the best part of the ceremony (other than your son’s graduation of course).
Congrats!
Now I just need to find a diff eq night class for next semester, and finish up my one last CS online credit, and I can give my parents the same satisfaction, heh.
Oh, and find a job, too. Sigh….
You pay in-state tuition rates though right? Anyway while in Madison I recommend Vientienne for thai food or the Weary Traveler for great burgers and beer.
Happy monkey!
And snowy monkey- there’s a storm blowing through the midwest. Drive carefully!
I was perhaps too subtle in my ribbing – I was invited to become an English major myself. I stuck with physics and engineering because, sad to say, it’s easier to pursue non-technical arts with a technical degree than vice versa… so more power to Connlann!
Congratulations to Connlann!
I love your kids names PZ.
Shining Solstice to all you happy heathens! Everyone hoist a jug today. Sweet swilling monkeys!
I know what that’s like. Offspring No. 3, my beautiful son Aidan, is the first non-techie/scientist in 3 generations. I was very happy that he was. My family needs some ‘bandwidth’, not that I’m complaining about the 2 biologists!
No, you don’t. You go to college as resume fodder; everything else is a welcome secondary. Sure it’s nice to think otherwise, but who are we kidding? Employers care about the degree, that’s it. Half the time they don’t even care what the degree’s for, just that you have one. And you don’t need a college atmosphere to learn about life and/or experience personal growth, it just helps.
That aside congrats to your son and please be careful driving. We’re having one hell of a storm right about now here in WI and nobody wants to hear about any accidents on I-90, so don’t try to hurry.
Innit great when your offspring make you proud?
Hearty congratulations to your boy on his achievement and to you for providing guidance that helped him to reach it.
Now you know how the Grinch felt when his heart grew several sizes inside him. Why, mine grew two-tenths just reading the news!
And Happy Monkey to all.
My daughter has two degrees. She got a BA in history because she’s fascinated with history. She got an MBA so she can make a good wage. She’s an accounting middle manager for a largish company. She publishes an occasional paper in history journals.
I hope you enjoy your stay in Madison. You should find us locals to be a happy, simple people… so long as our bellies are full of beer and the Badgers haven’t just lost a game, anyways. ;)
Just because you went to college for that reason doesn’t mean everyone else did. For me education is entirely personal, and I don’t give a monkey’s what employers care about, otherwise I would’ve done something a helluva lot easier.
Is that true, or is it just defensive bravado? I don’t mean that as as insult, I just find it hard to believe there are really that many people out there with the disposable income to “not give a monkey’s” when it comes to securing a job after incurring the kind of debt that inevitably follows an American college education. It’s simply not realistic. College is expensive. Hell, life is expensive. For most people the easiest route to a materially satisfying middle to upper-middle class lifestyle is a college degree.
Why? Because it gives us access to the jobs that can pay us enough to not have the ration each paycheck. It’s only once we have a good roof over our heads, food in our bellies, a reasonable expectation that the next cold won’t financially cripple us if it gets bad, and so on that we can devote time to the more fulfilling aspects of life. You have to cover the basics first, because like a house of cards without that first layer you’ve got nothing.
Maybe it’s because I came from a family barely above poverty and worked my way through college but I find it hard to believe that the “feel good” outweighs the financial considerations, at least not for most people.
But then, I suppose, you’ll now tell me that when you were busy choosing your major your resulting income potential never once crossed your mind. Right?
Squiddhartha:
Besides, writing physics papers is a great way to develop your stylistic chops for your burgeoning career as a novelist. Right?
But this is all beside the point. Sorry for the tangent, it’s just a peeve of mine.
Congrats Connlann, congrats PZ, safe driving to everyone in the upper midwest this weekend. :-)
The end of tuition payments (or, for others, student loan payments) has to be one member of the great financial monkey pantheon. Some of the other members are the end of Child Support payments, Alimony payments, Car payments, Credit Card Payments and the last, the greatest and the rarest is the paying off of the Home Mortgage. Sadly, for the vast majority of us, we do not get to celebrate many of these Happy Monkey.
Yet, there are so many less expensive ways to become a better human being.
Congratulations in any case!
Dr. Myers,
Congratulations to your family. Is it now one down and two to go, or am I miscounting?
@Scott Hatfield:
Just do what my uncle did: Start charging them rent. If that doesn’t wake them up, nothing will.
Don’t you know it’s SNOWING! It’s a BLIZZARD for dog’s sake!!
OK, if you go, know that I will be preying for you; and burning incest . . . . Preyer and incest will help, because you will know that you’re being preyed for and that will increase your confidence while you encounter the Skid Demon which Lurks as you travel.
(Congrats on the grad; I have two girl grads, myself: One with a biology degree from UofM TC and one with a mathematics degree from UofM Duluth. Both of them wound up in Duluth somehow . . . . Nothing like a GOOD educomation to make them go far!)
Congrats to Connlann and his proud papa!
I’ve heard from graduates that UW-Madison is a lot like UT at Austin. If that’s true, I’m sure Connlann had the best years of his life and possibly took an extra year to graduate (like myself) :)
Oh, happy happy, joy joy! Congratulations to your son and Happy Monkey to everyone!
Epikt, it’s arguably a good way to prepare for being a science fiction novelist… at least in terms of the discipline of pounding out the words. Anyone exposed to scientific papers knows that their literary value is often nil if not negative.
As it happens, I bailed from grad school with an MS when I realized that actual research astrophysicists spend half their time begging for money and half their time writing papers… and I hate begging for money and writing papers.
I used to be a (junior) academic before bailing into IT. My take on it, for me and for students I advised, was always that you should study what you love. Because if you study what you hate in order to get a job, then you’ll only get a job doing something you hate.What a great life that would be!
Do what you love, and the opportunities follow. Connlann has all sorts of options with English. If not professor, perhaps high school teacher, editor, novelist, technical writer, journalist, publisher, arts policy, librarian, arts administration…
I wish I could be of the same opinion. In a perfect world I would, but in this one there is so much poverty that it cannot work for everyone, but just a select privileged few. Great for your son that he is in that situation. Too bad the majority of the world’s population has to think in turns of money, food, and survival before they can even consider personal improvement and hobbies.
Bjorn, I don’t think the problem here is with P.Z.’s philosophy on what education is for. It’s entirely reasonable to believe that college is, at it’s best, an opportunity to become a better person while simultaneously holding the opinion that it is a desperate tragedy that only a tiny minority of people have access to that opportunity. Seems like that should be motivation to work at changing the world so that someday everyone will have the same chance.
grolby, what I means it that most people who have the chance to get any kind of education have to prioritize what kind of job they can get when they graduate.
It is never going to be possible for everyone to have the opportunity to go to college without thinking about their future job. Even working towards that is folly.
P.S. I never gave the job a second thought when I started university. I was purely interested, and never had any idea what I wanted to do afterwards. Now I am studying again, have two kids, and while I thoroughly enjoy what I do, not thinking about what to do with it before I even started would have been a very bad idea.
Congratulations to you and your son. But a piece of advice from a 50-something former English major: Go to law school, go to med school, get a Ph.D. — do something to make yourself more employable. I love(d) literature too, but I can’t tell you how much I wish I had taken science!!!!!