Theory vs. Reality

I find myself missing school these days. I know, isn't that ironic. Seventeen years in and over twenty grand in debt and yet we all end up here anyway, just begging to go back to it, dying to sink more of our time and money into these faceless yet bold institutions. I always feel like my brain is wasting away because I haven't done anything theory in a long time. Besides pregnancy and childbirth, and in theory this is all coming up roses which is absolutely nothing like the real thing. I have come to the conclusion that all of those childbirth books that I read could not possibly have been about childbirth. I don't even think that the people who wrote them have kids of their own. I just remember thinking beforehand that it would all be okay because I had read all of the books. That was before the horror show screaming and massive amounts of spurting blood akin to Prom Night: The Massacre. Then afterwards I thought,

"WTF!!!"

In reality, those books were about as helpful in regards to childbirth as a plumber's manual. In fact, I should have been reading a plumber's manual, it would probably have been more useful. But back to my original point. Theory always makes anything look so smart and logical, organized into patterns and lists in little boxes etc. but in practice, in the real world, it's all screaming and chaos, sink or swim and that's when most of that theory goes out the window and you just do whatever it takes to survive. But theory sure makes you feel smart and put together at the time. I think that's what I miss, reading all those big fat textbooks that had everything color coded and sported bold faced type for important definitions etc. Ok, not really reading them, let's be honest, just highlighting everything in sight with brand new fluorescent yellow. It's like In case of Emergency: Please refer to the bold faced highlighted line on page 45 (unless you are presently being eaten by a mongoose). I don't even know what a mongoose is or what one looks like or even if it has the capacity to consume a human. Go figure. This is what happens when you are up too late at night.