Inspiration

I've been trying to remember this week what I ever used to blog about. I'll have to go back and look... I honestly can't remember. With all my little ones home and up my nose every single second it's a bit hard to follow any thought through to it's conclusion... but I'm finally out of my li'l funk and feeling funkified and inspired again.... I got this great book at the library, it's the sequel to another that I used to have which is so great... highly reccomended.

The Animal School: A parable

Once upon a time, the animals decided they must do something decisive to meet the increasing complexity of their society. They held a meeting and finally decided to organize a school.

The curriculum consisted of running, climbing, swimming, and flying. Since these were the basic behaviors of most animals, they decided that all the students should take all the subjects.

The duck proved to be excellent at swimming, better in fact, than his teacher. He also did well in flying. But he proved to be very poor in running. Since he was poor in this subject, he was made to stay after school to practice it and even had to drop swimming in order to get more time in which to practice swimming. He was kept at this poorrest subject until his webbed feet were so badly damaged that he became only average at swimming. But average was acceptable in the school, so nobody worried about that--- except the duck.

The rabbit started at the top of her class in running, but finally had a nervous breakdown because of so much make-up time in swimming--- a subject she hated.

The squirrel was excellent at climibing until he developed a psychological block in flying class, when the teacher insisted he start from the ground instead of from the tops of trees. He was kept at attempting to fly until he became muscle-bound... and received a C in climbing and a D in running.

The eagle was the school's worst discipline problem; in climbing class, she beat all of the others to the top of the tree used for examination purposes in this subject, but she insisted on using her own method of getting there.

The gophers, of course, stayed out of school and fought the tax levied for education because digging was not included in the curricullum. They apprenticed their children to the badger and later joined the groundhogs and eventually started a private school offering alternative education.

-----Alas, the author is unknown (a student at the University of Toronto)