While here in Tucson, I’ve enrolled in several adult education courses, which started this week.
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On Tuesday, I attended my first session, where a member of the University of Arizona Department of Linguistics presented a talk on artificial intelligence. He had an interesting take on the economics of this new technology. Without getting into the details of his talk, suffice it to say I came away feeling some trepidation about the future of our economy if we ever get too cozy with, and dependent on, artificial intelligence.
During this session, a handheld microphone was made available to members of the “class” for questions. Since you must be at least fifty years old to register for any of the weekly offerings, I noticed that my new classmates were a tad older than the ones I recall from my youth.
Indeed, it has been many, many years since I was enrolled in school. However, I can still recall those students who invariably raised their hands, waved frantically, and made low grunting sounds, anything to seize the opportunity to chime in with a comment or to answer a teacher’s question.
During Tuesday’s session, one guy attempted to monopolize our microphone as if it were a television remote, and he was at home in his living room. He grudgingly shared the microphone if someone else wanted to make a point or pose a question, but he wouldn’t give up physical control. He repeatedly interrupted the professor’s talk with comments and questions of no apparent interest to anyone but himself. It finally got to the point that whenever he raised his hand, I would roll my eyes. And I noticed that I was not alone. Unfortunately, our professor was too polite to pull the plug.
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Yesterday, I attended an art appreciation class involving the themes of beauty, truth, and goodness across classical Greek and Roman art, Renaissance art, and contemporary art. Our articulate guide, who was affiliated with the Tucson Art Museum, sounded knowledgeable. Personally, I was only familiar with a smattering, mostly Renaissance tidbits involving Florence, Italy, where Lee and I had once toured. The remainder I had to accept at face value, being basically ignorant of the history or traditions of the visual arts. However, I thought the wonderful images he presented made a convincing case that traditional notions of beauty, truth, and goodness could be seeing a modern renaissance. I came away thinking, the more things change, the more they stay the same.
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Later today, I will attend two more new classes: one about evolutionary biology, offering evidence-based suggestions about where we may be headed as a species; the other, a stand-up comedy workshop! (I couldn’t even tell you why.) Finally, to end this week, I have a poetry session scheduled for Friday.
Then, in February, I am enrolled in what I hope is a practical guide to streaming video content. It’s the perfect offering for folks over fifty. At home, I’m still tethered to cable television, which is pricey. Meanwhile, I have difficulty tapping into the streaming services that prior visitors here have installed. I don’t know whether streaming individual stations or small packages is a preferable alternative to cable, but I aim to find out soon.
I already know that I like being busy and staying active. While I’m not expecting to get smarter, I hope to be pleasantly surprised and entertained by my several classroom diversions.
