Again, thanks to Cushla who started the process, I did as I was told, mindlessly followed her lead because she’s clever and she does things that are good and right, and she doesn’t mind including me.
Followed her to do what?
In this case it was returning to study, but not as I might have thought two years ago, to complete my PhD. Far from it. I think the PhD’s a thing in the past, dead in the water, gone without trace, and it should be left there. The research I completed is all published on my blog in the Karate section where it receives regular attention from practitioners worldwide, so job well done.
That door is (mostly) closed.
But I have the key.
My new learning journey is with Te Wānanga o Aotearoa, and it involves starting again, which is an absolute joy. I have quiet moments where I think of my twenty-five years in the tertiary sector, and my sixty years total in the learning (education) service, and here I am, at eighty, starting again at level three and loving every moment of it.
Cushla has maintained a position one paper ahead of me, which has meant I have my ahorangi leading me and my wahine matuajockeying me along. Both are superb at the roles they have adopted in my learning life.
I’ve already learned heaps and I’m happy to say that I have graduated Level Three of the programme and, in May, start work on the next one. I’m also looking at taking on a second project which involves formally learning te reo Māori as well.
It’s very easy as an old person to fall into the trap of saying ‘why bother, I’ll be gone soon.’ It’s a slippery slope, that one. I meditated for nearly a minute on what becomes of the knowledge I have accumulated in my life when I die, and I’ve concluded that it really doesn’t matter.
Not a single rat’s patootie.
The important thing is to keep on doing it.
dykiegirl 