Now this is probably not surprising to anyone, but I think I'm a pretty smart person. I've always done well in school, graduated from the University of Michigan with great grades, and now am doing pretty well at BYU Law School. As it turns out, I needed a piece of humble pie. News flash to me... I'm not that smart.
Yesterday, I went to institute. And I felt so incredibly dumb. I needed a dictionary. We just started Doctrines of the Gospel, and the first lesson is "Divine truth." We started out with the meaning of truth. It's root and related words. Ummm... I'm not a linguist, nor an etymologist. I have no idea where the word truth comes from. We some how ended up talking about how betroth is related, and I was like, "Oh I know that word, but I might be wrong, so just in case I sound like an idiot, I won't say anything."
Seriously, the teacher and other students were throwing out all these words that I'm sure I'd heard before, but didn't really know exactly what they meant. I felt like I needed to do the GRE vocab section to prepare for institute. (I never took the GRE, give me a logic game from the LSAT - I'd do much better!)
Then we started talking about how every teenager "doctrinizes" Polonius's statements* ("To thine own self be true" and "Brevity is the soul of wit") and I was like, wait, who is Polonius? Which play is he in? I haven't studied Shakespeare for 7 years, give me a break! Then the teacher asked what have we doctrinized in our own life. Umm... What does doctrinize mean? I don't typically adapt statements from plays as my mantra. Well, maybe I do, but just for a day or two and as my gchat status because it's funny, not because it's how I plan to live my life. (For example, right now, my gchat status is: "No one would convict us because people love monkeys" - Amy Farrah Fowler)
All in all, these U of Chicago kids (I say kids, but they're not really kids) are super smart. Or maybe it's because they're getting PhDs in Literature and Greek and Ancient Civilizations and some other English related thing that it was right up their alley. I think I faked my way to an intelligent conversation (without being found out that I'm dumb) and even threw in some Latin from law school (malum in se & malum prohibitum)
Now someone remind me who Descartes is because he might come up again. Or better yet, tell me everything I need to know about authors and philosophers of the 17th century. Thanks!
*I looked these up later
3 comments:
You might be living in The Windy City, but tonight we were riding our bikes downhill and had to pedal to keep from stopping. You might like Hermiston after all.
Whoa! That's crazy! Do you know how fast the wind was? I think Hermiston looks like a beautiful place. I'm not sure if I'm ready to pack up and call it home, but a visit might be nice.
I knew it! You saw our blog and just couldn't resist after you saw how much fun we were. Our doors are open whenever you want to give it a try. I'll try to have a date waiting for you when you come. Then we can really test if you know how to win friends :) Just kidding. I wouldn't do that to you!
Post a Comment